


Fortunately Desperate/Turbulently Innocent

by objectlesson



Category: Cars (Movies)
Genre: Age Difference, But overall, Drabble Collection, Everyone Is Alive, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-30
Updated: 2019-12-28
Packaged: 2020-02-10 04:12:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 39
Words: 29,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18652663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/objectlesson/pseuds/objectlesson
Summary: A collection of Doc/McQueen drabbles originally posted to tumblr. Check the author's notes for each chapter to get comprehensive tags for the Drabble!





	1. Casually

**Author's Note:**

> I've been writing lots of little drabbles on tumblr and figured everyone on here might be interested! So, here they are. Each chapter note will include the prompt it was written for and all the tags/warnings so please read carefully!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This one was written for the prompt "casually." 
> 
> Tags: established, anxiety, minor internalized homophobia, cuddling, fluff, sweetness.

You wake up hours before him.

He’s sleep rumpled in your sheets, skin silver-white in the dawn filtering through the blinds, falling in slats over his toned back. There are marks, there, from your nails. They frame his spine and that feels like an absolute miracle, because your nails are blunt, for one, but also because any lasting evidence of the fact he _wants_ you to touch him seems impossible, too good to be true. You roll onto your side, close to him, and he murmurs in his sleep but does not wake up, not even when you gently trace down one of the scratches with your fingertip, hoping it does not sting too badly.

You run the risk of feeling guilty for looking too hard when he’s knocked out like this, so you get up, slip tentatively from under the comforter and tiptoe on aching legs to the kitchen, where you make your coffee. You keep looking at your hands, which were cupping his face last night as you bent him in half, his legs draped over your shoulders while you pushed in. Hands you’ve had all _over_ him, actually. Wrapped around his length, pushing his soft, gold dusted thighs apart, holding his hips while you pounded into the heat of him like you _don’t_ have a bad back. It seems remarkable, _surreal_ , to remember such things, but you smile to yourself anyway, unable to hold such a pure deluge of feeling from showing, especially since there’s no one to see you right now. _These hands made a boy come last night,_ you tell yourself, and the mere _thought_ makes your stomach lurch with unexpected heat. You didn’t know you could feel like this, anymore. In fact you don’t even know if you have _ever_ felt this way before. Like you could settle into how good it is to fuck him. 

After pouring yourself a mug you sit down in your favorite chair to read the paper. It’s harder to focus than usual, knowing he’s still in your bed, but you try your hardest to at least start the crossword. You’ve gotten a handful of answers written down in pencil scratches before you finish your coffee and get up to pour yourself more. It’s when you’re turned to the counter with your back to the door you hear him, the creak of the floorboards under his feet as he walks through the house, tries to find you. It’s so _odd_ to hear someone else in your space after years of willful loneliness, it almost frightens you. 

You want to turn to see him, his messy hair and his sleep-heavy eyes and the mark on his throat you put there with your mouth last night like an animal, but you don’t. You clutch the coffee-cup, fierce and white knuckled, wondering if you’ve got it all _wrong_. Maybe these sorts of things _don’t_ last past the morning, _aren’t_ real, and that’s why it feels so impossible and unlikely. Maybe he’s coming to tell you he made a mistake. Maybe he is coming to tell you goodbye.

Instead he walks up behind you and loops his arms around your waist, pressing his face into your back. “Bed got cold,” he mumbles, slipping a hand into your robe to rub up the thatch of your chest hair and over your heart, which catches in your ribcage, stunned. “You sleep alright? I didn’t hog the blankets, did I?”

You touch his hand, covering it with your own and squeezing it before clumsily rotating around in his arms to look down at him. His bleary eyes, the crease on his cheek from the pillow. So many small, lovely, unguarded details. “Not too many times,” you say gently, smoothing hair away from his eyes. “Was sort of alright. Had to steal them back.”

“Hopefully I didn’t put up _too_ much of a fight,” he says, grinning. You admire the flash of his teeth and then, just like that, he’s leaning up and kissing you.

It’s so _easy,_ so good. It shouldn’t be so easy, but here he is. An endless parade of delightful shocks. It’s not a deep kiss, or a wet kiss. It’s simply a good morning kiss, sweet and casual, his breath sleepy and lovely as you breathe it in. You turned seventy this year, but you are fairly certain you’ve never had one of these sorts of kisses. You thought they were reserved for men younger than you, straighter than you. 

“Coffee?” he asks, licking his lips as he pulls back. “Don’t hold out, old man. Gimme some of that. I’m barely human right now, it’s like what, _seven o clock?_ Jesus.” And he’s letting go, he’s rummaging around in the cupboard and pouring himself a cup from the pot wearing nothing but his boxers and your nail marks, like he belongs here, like he’s home.

You wipe your eyes as his back is turned, inhaling a rattling, grateful breath like a prayer. 


	2. Discreetly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This one was written for the prompt "discreetly" 
> 
> Tags: established, secret relationship, minor angst, fluff, implied past homophobia.

discreetly

You’re with the rest of the pit crew and it’s happy hour, the last practice before McQueen’s next sizable race and you don’t have a single fucking thing to complain about during his performance, so you’re shaking you head, trying to bite back a smile. He’s _fantastic_. So much more focused and balanced than when you first met him, taking every pothole and and challenge you throw him in brilliant stride. Luigi’s cheering already and you would be too, but you always invent something to give him a hard time with, so as he rolls in skids to a stop and stumbles out of the roll cage after braking, you try hard to school your expressions, and claw back at least an ounce of feigned stoicism.

“Well, well, well,” you drawl, arms crossed over your chest, headphones down around your neck so you can’t hear the pit-chatter. “What do you you have to say for yourself, Mr. Hot-shot?”

McQueen pulls his helmet off and his hair is sweat-damp and messy underneath, and _god,_ you are _still_ nowhere near over the fact you get to card your hands through it in private, that you can make fists in those soft, strawberry blonde strands and hold him down while you kiss him, while you _fuck_ him. Jesus _._ It shouldn’t be real, but here he is, grinning at you, cheeks flushed, expression coy.

“Ok, ok. I came too fast out of the banking, my contact patch felt weak. Which is fine during practice, but when there are other cars on the track, marbles, dirty air…” he trails off, getting quiet the closer and closer you get. You stop fast, inches away from him, studying his face hard. “Fuck, _wha_ t? Did I do something else wrong?”

“There isn’t going to be dirty air when you race tomorrow,” you tell him, keeping your jaw hard and set.

He looks at you, wide blue eyes you want to drown in. _God,_ this gorgeous boy, gazing up at you like you have all the answers, when he has been your every answer, the secret to unlocking so many tired, old, dusty places inside you that you thought would never be touched again. “What do you mean?”

“Because you’re going to be leading the rest the whole _goddamn time_ , son,” you tell him, finally letting yourself smile.

He surges into you, body softening with relief as a grin spreads across his face and you pull him in tight to your chest, curl your arms around his lower back and _hold him_ , hold him. “You think?” he asks, mouth close to your neck, your chests pressed flush so you can hear his heartbeat thudding against yours. “Think it’s a surefire win like that? First from the get-go?”

“I do,” you tell him, squeezing his hips. “If you listen to me.”

“Always,” he mumbles, voice getting soft and muffled because he’s pressing his lips to your pulse, right there in the pit, in front of the rest of the crew. You tense but then you soften, because as your gaze frantically swoops to face everyone else you realize they’re not paying attention; they hardly see you. They’re joking and cleaning up and tending to the car and hugging in possibly premature celebration just like you and McQueen are. Without the wet spread of his mouth, of course, but still. Things between men go so easily unnoticed, in these spaces, and you’re not sure if it’s a new development, or something you were always too terrified to indulge when you were young, worried they’d all see through you, know it wasn’t the same. You clutch him a little tighter, turn your face into the sweaty mess of his hair and inhale. There are things you’re not used to getting away with, and touching him in public, however discreetly, is one of them. So, you lean into it, you drink it up like you’re parched. 

“Good boy,” you murmur, rubbing a heavy palm up his back. “They’re gonna be eating asphalt tomorrow, let me tell you. You’re gonna knock them dead.”


	3. On a Scar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> written for the prompt "kiss on a scar." 
> 
> Tags: first time, angst, pain, chronic pain, scars, internalized homophobia, fear, romance.

There’s a scar which curls around your low-back to the side of your thigh, bisecting the plane of your IT band and stretching down almost as far as your kneecap. It’s one of many scars left from the crash, but it’s the ugliest, the meanest. The only one that did not fade to white like a memory, but remains raised and purple and dimpled. No hair grows there, so it cuts through the rest of you like a river, like a valley. 

The crash was over 50 years ago, but this particular scar still aches sometimes, stings in a way that makes your nightmares come back and your head fuzzy when you wake, nails dug into the smooth, rippled mark of it, phantom siren sounds fading a you blink. The older you get, the more things hurt, and this scar isn’t an exception. 

Neither is that familiar pang in your chest when you see a beautiful boy who races cars, two things from your past you will never, ever have the privilege of touching again. It hurt 50 years ago, and it hurts ten times worse now, alongside your stiffening joints, your greying hair. The longing, the regret. 

When Lightning McQueen shows up in Radiator Springs, it feels like being outed. It feels like bring _burnt._ And you can’t look at him without feeling sick with want and envy and bitterness and fear, so you try to send him away, over and over again. 

But he keeps coming back, and your scar feels tight, it itches, and you realize there are certain sorts of pain you just can’t run from, because they’ve become a part of you. He’s that sort of pain, you think. A grave you dig and lie inside, skin run through with slivers of white scar tissue, and one big purple highway on your hip, reminding you of all the things you only do once or twice. Anything more than that is luck, and _damn,_ you were lucky. You’ve kissed men. You won piston cups. You crashed, sure, and you’re alone now, but at least you tasted that glory, once. Lightning McQueen isn’t anything but a pipe-dream, but you’re ok with that, flat on your back while black earth falls on you in slow crumbles. 

You’re resigned to this future of fruitless want, so it catches you so off guard when he kisses you for the first time. You think you’re dreaming. That you’ve died, maybe. But nothing changes. He stays solid under your hand, flesh wet with sweat and smelling of sunscreen and deodorant and tiger balm and disinfectant because you’re in the middle of a fucking locker room at a NASCAR training center in Oahu. He kisses you and you kiss back, because it’s a dream, and you can do anything in dreams, you’re pretty sure. 

But you don’t wake up. He pulls away, grins at you, the blue in his eyes shining and inviting like a swimming pool, the sort you pitch head first into to drown.

That’s the first time, but it’s not the last time. It doesn’t even matter, though, because every time feels like the first time it’s such a fucking shock. Making you tremble, shaking you to your foundation like Lightning McQueen is an earthquake and you’re a whole city pitching into his fissures. You’re stunned to silence each time, licking into him, looking for answers you can’t find to questions you won’t ask. _You could have anyone, kid, why me? Aren’t you afraid I might kill you? How did you get so brave?_ And, most importantly, _can’t you see I’m old and broken?_

He must see though, even if it seems impossible. Because there are things he embraces rather than ignores.

The first time you fuck Lightning McQueen it’s in a motel in Indiana. You cry even though you’re the one inside him, and he’s pale and shaking the whole time, cock limp against his trembling stomach, but every time you ask him if he wants you to stop, he begs you not to. After you empty yourself inside his hot-tight body, he jacks off onto your skin and kisses you the whole time, and never, ever did you think such a thing could happen to you. He’s a pipe-dream, and he’s here in this bed, rubbing his hand idly down your ribcage like he didn't just lay waste to the foundation of your reality, like he didn't just spill gasping over your bones like an effigy. All this time, you thought you were done with the racing world, with men, even though you loved them both so, so much it was bound to kill you someday. And now, you have a race-car driver in your arms and he’s kissing you blind, and he’s got _one_ more Piston Cup than you ever had all because of your guidance, and that feels impossible, too. Impossible and wonderful. 

He traces the ugliest scar, fingers light and delicate. You hold your breath, and then he gathers his come up off the hair by your navel and rubs it into that river, that valley. “This is the hottest thing,” he says, bending to kiss it, right where it crosses your hip bone like the Rio Grande. “God,” he says, lips brushing against skin that both feels numb and oversensitive, a strange ghost pain like sirens in your dreams. “Imagine if you’d never found me. I’d be…I’d be flanked in Dinoco showgirls, pretending I had friends, pretending I didn't _hate_ myself. You fucking saved me, you know that?” 

“I didn’t find you, kid,” you remind him, cupping the back of his bent head. He's licking the scar now, razing his teeth against it, making your stomach tighten up at the miraculous shivering heat of it. It feels _good,_ somehow, at the same time it hurts. You never knew those could coexist so neatly. “You found me.” _You saved me._

“The one thing I did right, in my whole life,” he says, breath tickling old dead nerves. “I didn't feel _anything_ real until this. I was…dead, I dunno, hollowed out. All I cared about was racing, and being loved for it, because God _knows_ I didn’t have a single fucking ounce of that outside the track. But now…now.” 

There’s a moment of quiet, nothing but the sound of his sucking mouth against your worst scar. 

“I wasn't sure I had sensation, here, either,” you murmur because there’s nothing else to say. You rub your fingers down the stretch of the scar that covers your thigh, and he greedily pushes your hand away, touches it himself, like you’re not allowed to feel your own pain when he can absolve it. “Or—-maybe not. Maybe I just didn’t know it could _do_ anything but hurt.” 

He kisses the path of it, determined to prove you wrong. 

You feel the familiar pang in your chest when you see a beautiful boy who races cars, but this time, he’s touching you, _he’s touching you_ , and somehow you get to touch him back. You close your eyes, and you’re lying in a grave, but there’s no dirt falling onto your body, just his breath, his lips, a river, a valley. 


	4. I am speed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I don't remember what the prompt was?? but probably something about Lightning coming too fast. 
> 
> Tags: erectile dysfunction, premature ejaculation, first time topping, established, banter, humor, fluff, romance, discussion, negotiation.

The first time Lightning actually gets to _put it in_ Doc, he comes in 46 seconds. 

The specifics, however, are not important. He only knows them because he counted every second out in his head while he desperately tried to hold on. What _matters_ is that he’s less than five inches rock hard and cannot even last a _full minute_ of actual fucking and is probably is the worst and most disappointing boy toy in the entire _universe_ as a result. 

When the aftershocks fade he collapses, whining, on Doc’s chest. 

Gentle arms encircle him, and he can _physically feel_ Doc holding back laughter. “That good, huh Rookie?” he rumbles, kneading gently at the dimples in Lightning’s lower back. 

“Oh my god,” he grinds out, face hot where it’s pressed into Doc’s neck. “Why the fuck are you even _with_ me?” 

“Hey, now. That’s my favorite boy you’re talking about,” Doc says, sweet and gruff, thumbing up the tendons in Lightning neck which are drawn at the base of his skull. “Be nice to him.”

“M’only your favorite because m’your _only_. If you had bigger dicked guys in your life with more stamina, you’d forget I even existed,” he argues self-deprecatingly. He knows in his heart of hearts this isn't actually true, that there’s a lot more than sex to Doc’s regard for him, but it’s hard to remember, sometimes, when he's reminded of how _actually bad_ at it he is. Like, he’s objectively awful at fucking. It’s humiliating in the bad, not sexy way.

Doc sighs, deep and long-suffering, shifts and arranges himself under Lightning’s dead wight so his cock slides out, making them both shiver. Lightning whimpers in embarrassment, in oversensitivity. He’s _almost thirty two,_ he should _not_ be such an overeager, pathetic puppy about getting his dick up a guy’s ass. _Yes_ , he only started having satisfying sex in the last year, and _yes,_ it’s very exciting still, but _46 seconds?!_ It’s mortifying. He does not deserve to be in Doc’s _bed,_ let alone his _body_.

“Listen, kid,” Doc murmurs, rolling him onto his side and holding him close. “I dunno how many times I’ve got to tell you, but m’not with you because of the size of your dick or how long you last. M’with you because I love you. And you make me happier than I ever thought was possible, for an old guy like me.” 

Like always, it twists Lightning’s gut, makes him squirm, tears spring to his eyes. he’s so lucky, it’s insane. Still, the reassurance doesn’t chase the insecurity away, not entirely. In fact Doc’s almost-patronizing tone only makes him feel _worse,_ highlights the fact he has to be treated so carefully, so gently, like he’s a fragile baby who can’t endure criticism. “But you deserve to feel good. I want to make you feel good and I _can’t_ and it _sucks,”_ he complains. 

_“_ You’re pouting,” Doc mumbles, thumbing at the downturned corner of his mouth. “That famous Lightning McQueen pout. Breaks my heart, to hear you talk like this. You _do_ make me feel good, drive me goddamned crazy. You know that.” 

“Yeah, but. I want to fuck _you_ like you fuck _me_ ,” Lightning elaborates, kissing Doc’s thumb before resuming the supposedly famous pout. 

“Nah, I’d break. M’old, remember? A cock much bigger than yours would shatter these brittle bones. And my back would seize up after a few minutes. I’m not cut out for any marathon fucks.” He’s joking, obviously, and that doesn’t make Lightning feel any better, _either._

“Oh come on. My dick is smaller than the dildo you have. You can take a bigger cock, you _do_ take bigger cock.”

“Maybe ten years ago. I keep that dildo around because I use it on _you,_ kid.” 

Lightning grits his teeth, letting out a long, low whine because this _isn’t making him feel any better._ It’s just Doc proving over and over again how _good_ he is, how perfect he is at fucking, how easy it is for him to take care of Lightning. 

Meanwhile, he comes in forty six seconds like a goddamned teenager. “Just. It’s hard, because you’re so _good_ to me and m’constantly losing my mind over how great this thing is. The sex, all of it. And I can’t do the same for you.” 

“Oh, Lightning,” Doc says, shaking his head in exasperation. He must mean business because he only ever calls Lightning by his name on the track, and even then its still usually nick-names and pet names. “You really think _I’m_ not satisfied with you? That you don’t make me lose my mind?” He pinches Lightning’s side, makes him swat his hand away, deepen his frown. “Hell, I still think I’m dreaming, most days.”

“Ok, I know you like it. Like me, whatever,” Lightning admits. “You like sucking me off and fingering me and that I can come multiple times and that I like. _Cry_ for you, and stuff like that. But that’s different than _me_ fucking _you_ good. I just get to lie there, for the stuff you like. You always do all the work. S’not fair.” 

“Yeah, but it’s what _I_ like. So, who cares? I don’t need the same things you do. M’perfectly happy.” 

That last word sits between them for awhile, sinks into Lightning’s blood, almost soothes the sting of shame out of him. Almost. 

“I just. I dunno. I want to be good enough,” he eventually settles on.

Doc is quiet for a long time, combing his fingers thoughtfully through Lightning’s hair until his eyes get heavy, until his heart slows it’s insistent, anxious thud. “Baby, neither of us are perfect. But we’re a perfect together, alright? You don’t have to do for me what I do for you. We’re different.” 

“Except you’re sexy and experienced and have a big dick and I’m. This,” Lightning explains, gesturing down the flushed, sweat-slick mess of his body. He looks slight and weak and too young, especially next to Doc, who cuts such a shadow, has such a _presence._ Lightning has spend his whole career blowing smoke, and hoping no one notices how unremarkable he is once it dissipates. 

“Yeah. And I love that,” Doc says firmly. “I spent a lot of years wishing for something just like it, and now you’re here, flesh and blood, better than I ever could have imagined. It’s hard to wrap my head ‘round, still. I get that. But you gotta realize, all the stuff you think isn’t good enough? It’s just part of what I love,” he tells him slow and gruff and easy, each new word making Lightning choke up an tingle and shudder _._ God. Doc is so _good_ at this sort of stuff, like, crew chief stuff but in the bedroom. Bedroom chief stuff. Lightning is grateful for it, because he has no fucking idea what he’s doing, still, and he hates that. He lets his insecurity take the wheel and drive. 

“Yeah? You don’t wish I had a bigger dick? Or more experience?” he mumbles against Doc’s chest, finally unclenching his fist so he can palm up his side, where his skin is soft and loose.

“Nah, never. S’just a part of you, and I love you,” he says simply, and Lighting has to rub stupid, indignant, grateful tears into his age-softened pectoral muscle, skin and hair shifting under his cheek. “You’re not hung, and you’re overeager. And I’m old, and grey, and have to take viagra sometimes. That’s just how we are.”

“I don’t mind all that stuff,” Lightning reminds him, squeezing his hip. “I think it’s hot.”

“Yeah, well. How do you think _I_ felt about you, getting that little cock in me and coming so soon after, making all that noise? Think that _wasn’t_ hot? It was fucking hot, baby. Love how much you need all this. How good it feels for you.” 

“It felt really good, crazy ” Lightning admits, sniffling, turning his head to kiss Doc’s collarbone. After a quiet moment he adds, “I want to try again, if you’ll let me.” 

Doc’s laugh rumbles through both of them. “Course we’ll try again. We’ll go real slow this time, ok? I’ll suck you off before so you’re not so worked up. And now the mystique is over, you’ve done it. Shouldn’t be as exciting.” 

“It’s always gonna be exciting,” Lightning confesses, scooting up to kiss Doc on the mouth, slide his hand down to his half-hard cock, feel it out. Doc kisses back and it’s so hungry and raw and rich, and he cants up into the pressure of his palm, chasing it. _A perfect set,_ Lighting tells himself, and tries to believe it. Its a little easier, actually, with Doc surging under him, pulling him close. _Just a part of you, and I love you._


	5. Massage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt was massage! 
> 
> Tags: pre-slash, tension, unrequited (ha) love.

Lightning McQueen complains _unrelentingly_ about his back. 

Doc doesn't doubt it hurts, not really. He know how racing fucks your body up. Still, it seems sort of insensitive to bitch endlessly about something hurting to a guy in his seventies. He files it away amongst his other grievances against McQueen, hoping one day enough will build up they’ll cancel out the fact he’s stupidly, hopelessly in love with him. 

So far, no dice. 

They're in California for a two day race, and Lightning fared well the first day but he’s worried about the second, all because his back is apparently killing him. “I just. I _know_ I’d win if it weren’t for this.I trained enough, I’ve got this,” he laments, pacing his hotel room while Doc tries time and time to escape to his own. “I don't know what I’m supposed to do.” 

“Take some pain-killers, hope for the best,” Doc offers, shaking his head. “It’s not what I’d recommend as your doctor, but m’ _not_ your doctor, kid. I’m your crew-chief and and that part of me thinks you just need to power through it. Twenty four hours, and we’re done.” 

“Ok,” McQueen says, collapsing onto his hotel bed, kicking his legs up and digging his feet into the mattress. Another grievance that doesn't matter, seeing as Doc’s thinking about getting down on his knees as the foot of the bed and settling between his thighs, at the same time he’s annoyed McQueen won't _give it up_ already, allow him to retire to his own room and get some _sleep_ before this fucking race. “What if you _were_ my doctor,” he muses, gesturing loosely. “What would you say, then? Just out of curiosity?” 

Doc sighs, rubbing at his chin thoughtfully. “I’d refer you to a good chiropractor, tell you to get some body work. Stretches, ice, massage. The slow approach.” 

Lighting pouts from the bed. “Slow’s not gonna _help._ I need something _now,_ that's gonna work before for tomorrow.” 

“Do you…” Doc starts, mind racing, mouth suddenly dry. “I…I could give you a massage,” he finally says, cheeks heating up because _even as he says it_ it sounds like a fucking cheesy opening to a gross porn. More than anything else he _hates_ fulfilling the role of the skeezy old gay man predating on his younger ward. He tells himself that’s not what’s happening, but he also knows he can’t _not_ want Lightning McQueen, and touching his skin through a layer of slick hot oil is the _last_ thing that will soothe such a condition. 

“Great. Let’s do it, doctor,” Lightning announces, flipping over onto his stomach and struggling out of his already thread-bare white teeshirt. “Fix me.” 

Doc cracks his knuckles, swallows his pride, his spit, his dignity. “Ok, kid,” he mumbles self deprecatingly, eyes fluttering closed as he grabs the hotel lotion from the bathroom. “You tell me if it’s too much.” 

“It won’t be,” Lightning assures him, voice muffled against the bedspread. His spine is lovely and golden and curved like a harp and Doc wants to play him, wants to lick down the line of his lower back. And McQueen is so _stupid,_ has no fucking _idea,_ what this shit _does_ to Doc. How it ruins him. 

Another useless grievance. Doc oils up his fingers, and reaches for skin.


	6. Jealousy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt was jealousy. 
> 
> Tags: Guido is a shit, possessiveness, banter, drunken escapades, established, karaoke, jealousy, PDA (or lack thereof).

They’re at a karaoke bar in Phoenix with the entire pit crew to celebrate a win, and Lightning _hates_ that Doc won’t touch him. 

He _knows_ it’s just the way he is, that even surrounded by friends and other gay people, he _still_ won’t crack that facade and let Lightning sit on his lap no matter how much he pouts about it. It’s not personal, it doesn't mean he doesn't love him or anything like that. He’s just weird about public stuff, and Lightning tries his _hardest_ to understand, but in his heart of hearts he’s a needy, insecure wreck and it’s _hard_ to go a whole night without _some_ physical reassurance. 

Half a joint and three drinks later, he’s outwardly complaining about it. 

He ropes Guido in, grabbing his elbow and dragging him out of the bar through the side door onto the smoking patio. “Hey,” he slurs, elbowing him in the side. “You’re married to an old man, you get it. They’re no fun, sometimes.” 

Guido raises and eyebrow and laughs, lights up a cigarette and passes it to Lightning, who shrugs, takes it. “ _Luigi diventa geloso,”_ he says, and Lightning stares because despite all his attempts to pick up Italian so he can understand what Guido is _talking about,_ it’s gone the second he’s drunk. Guido rolls his eyes, blows out smoke effortlessly through his nose. “Luigi. Jealous,” he clarifies. 

“Oh! Oh yeah. I dunno if Doc gets jealous, actually? I feel like… like he doesn’t, because he knows I’d _never_ actually cheat. I’m so kept. Shit,” he mumbles, taking a long hit, coughing. “He’s all I see.” 

“ _Fidati di me, lo farà_ ” Guido says knowingly, before steering Lightning back into the bar, black curls flashing under the stage lights as he passes the DJ a twenty and demands a song. “We sing,” he says to Lightning, swiveling his hips. “And—“ then, as if there are not words in either English or Italian to convey his meaning, he sucks a mouthful of smoke up from the cigarette before leaning to close and pushing it out onto Lightning’s face, batting his lashes. “ _flirtare_.” 

Lightning blinks. He thinks he knows what that word means. “Flirt? Over Karaoke? To make them jealous?” he repeats back stupidly. 

Guido nods, hardly looking at him as he figures out their place in line. “Next song,” he announces, raising his eyebrows. “You choose.” 

Lightning pounds the rest of his drink and decides on _Summer Loving_ from _Grease,_ because he knows both parts by heart and Guido can back him up enthusiastically on the “Shoo-do—bop-bops” 

Then, before he has time to really prepare or even _think_ about it, they’re getting ushered up as a pair. Guido is preening under the stage-lights in this way that makes Lightning think he’s done a lot of karaoke before, and he squints, blinking, thinking about the fact he’s done it _exactly_ zero times. He sees Doc sitting by the bar with Luigi and Mater, who’s hollering so loud he can’t even hear the opening chords. There’s the familiar flash of Doc’s glasses, the amused curl of his smirk, and before Lightning can chicken out, he _launches_ into the song, a little off key. 

He's worried he’s gonna forget the words, but they’re the sort he memorized as a kid so they’re deeply buried in him, coming out effortlessly as Guido situates himself in front of him, backing his ass up against Lightning’s hips while he belts out the backing vocals. 

It’s a lot. Lightning realizes, in this moment, _on stage,_ he’s never _touch-_ touched another man besides Doc, and it’s fucking _weird_ to grip Guido’s narrow waist and pull him close, to stumble with him there while the lights bake down on their bodies, his lungs full of a different man’s cologne. He keeps trying to look out into the audience to pick Doc out, but his vision is swimming and _Luigi_ is taking so much space up, glaring at Guido, gesturing for him to come down. 

Guido blows and kiss, before smacking one down on Lightning’s cheek, wet and sudden. 

Lightning gently shoves him off while he sings, feeling like he might be in over his head. 

After the song, Guido makes a bee-line for Luigi, smirking, and Lightning is forced to wander the bar for a few hazy, frantic moments before Mater tells him Doc went outside for some air. 

His heart is clenches up, and he sort of panics. He wonders if Doc is _mad,_ if this shitty plan has _backfired._ He finds him outside, finishing a drink, swirling ice in his glass. His gaze falls on Lightning and the blue of his eyes is unreadable. “Don’t be mad,” Lightning pleads, stumbling towards him. “I didn’t…I just _wanted—”_

 _“_ M’not _mad_ you’re a awful singer, I just can’t tolerate secondhand embarrassment. So, I came out here. If you’re done _singing_ I’ll head back in with you,” Doc says evenly, steadying him with a gentle hand on his forearm before he lets it fall away. 

“My—singing,” Lighting says, letting his chest deflate. “You’re not annoyed I flirted with Guido?” 

Doc turns back to him, cocking his head. “Is that what it was? Flirting? I was distracted. By how tone deaf you both were.” 

Lightning allows Doc to spread his hand wide and warm on the back of his neck, guide him back towards the door. It’s not until his stomach drops at the contact in a way that feels _starved_ that he realizes Doc is _touching him,_ in public. “Hey,” he says, spinning around, stumbling. “Wait a minute. Are you _jealous?”_

 _“_ Of course not,” Doc says scoffing, grip tightening as his fingers sift briefly into Lighting’s hair before letting go. “I _know_ you’re mine.” He thumbs possessively up to the cut of his jaw, hot and rough, even after he drops his hand back to his side. “And so do you.” 


	7. counting sheep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt for this one was "did you really crack a smile at me." 
> 
> Tags: pre-slash, pining, unrequited (ha) love, angst, flirting, racing, drinking, drunken sort of confusions, tension.

Come July, it’s too hot to drive the dirt track during the day. The burn sucks the air from your lungs and makes a furnace out of the roll-cage, so you decide to switch McQueen’s training regime to after dark. 

The stars lend a certain sort of privacy, and by the time August rolls around he’s managed to convince you to drive laps with him, show rather than tell. You race him over and over again, and beat him nearly every time, though by an increasingly narrow margin. Instead of getting frustrated, he’s just _awed,_ like he thinks you’re magic. 

It’s almost as thrilling as the five-freckle constellation on the back of his left arm which looks like Cassiopeia. You stare at that a lot. That and the muted cut of his tricep, the sweat-crusted whorls of gold hair which escape the bottom of his helmet, the completely unfair way his uniform jumpsuit hugs the tight curve of his ass. You watch him so often and so intently it doesn’t even feel like watching anymore, it just feels like breathing. Constant and involuntary, a function of you being alive. 

Somewhere between July and August, McQueen became your oxygen, and there’s nothing you can do about it because he’s twenty-nine and stupid and probably straight. 

So you drive him into the dirt, over and over again. It’s all you can do. Leave him breathless, his gas tank empty from chasing you around the butte. 

The first time he outsmarts you, instead of feeling angry you just love him more for it. You follow him over the finish line with your heart pounding in your right chest, hands sweating in your leather gloves where they grip the wheel. 

He stumbles out, yanks his helmet off and sticks his head in your unrolled driver’s side window. “Did you let me win?” he asks, panting, eyes wild and bright in the night. 

“That was all you, kid,” you confess, and then he’s fitting himself through the window and hugging you, smelling of salt and sun even though it long since set, body thrumming with adrenaline and sweat damp where it presses to yours. 

You want to touch him back, but your hands stay where they are, a death grip. You think of Cassiopeia, mouth dry. “Let’s celebrate,” you tell him as he peels off. “I have a bottle of jack in the trunk.” 

“You _what?”_ He asks, scandalized. “You never fail to amaze me, old man. _Liquor?_ In your _trunk?_ You’re talking _drunk driving?”_

 _“_ Hell no. M’a doctor, boy. All I’m saying is a shot. watch the stars until it burns off.” 

He eyes you carefully as you unload yourself from the Hornet, knees popping audibly because your body never lets you forget for very long how much older you are than him. “You do this a lot? You’re talking like you do this a lot.” 

“Not a lot,” you tell him, popping the trunk and finding the half-empty bottle, which has been rolling around with your jumper cables and first aid-kit while you race him in the dark. “But enough. It’s a good way to slow down and cool off, in the summer like this. Bet you’ve never seen so many stars in your life, city boy. You lie on your back while you sober up, and watch them multiply.” 

You gingerly climb onto the hood of the hornet, taking a hot swig of the whiskey before offering him the bottle. He takes it, fits his mouth right over the neck, where your mouth just was, and throws back a generous glup. Your throat burns in sympathy as he hands it back to you, before joining you on the hood, stretching out on his back, close enough you can feel the heat of his skin like a memory. You sigh, take another shot, just for good measure. “Shit,” he says quietly, holding his hands up, fingers splayed like he could reach out and grab the moon down. “That is a lot of stars.” 

“Told you,” you mumble, lips pressed to thick glass. You want to your pulse to slow down, to forget the feeling of him hugging you through the window, but you can’t. It just comes back, fierce and stomach turning every time, refusing to leave you alone. 

There’s a few moments of quiet between you, nothing but his still-labored breath and your still-broken heart thudding in your chest. You hate this, that all it ever takes is a pretty-boy behind the wheel of a fast car to reduce you to the same mess you were in 53’, before the wreck knocked some fucking caution into you. He’s even _worse,_ in some ways, because you _know_ he’s different. He’s not just pretty and he’s not just fast, he’s _kind,_ he’s invested in changing, he’s deeply generous, he listens to you, he loses to you, he just _beat_ you. 

You shake your head, think about reaching for the bottle again and asking him to drive you both home when he says, “I dunno how I _lived_ before this.” 

“Before what?” you ask, rubbing your hand over your mouth in favor of drinking. 

“I dunno, all of it,” he mumbles, head lolling against blue metal, skin looking silver in the spill of starlight. The moon isn't quite full but it’s huge and pale and incessantly bright tonight, so you can see him, even in the dark. “The desert,” he offers, before he gestures loosely with his hand and turns to you. “Friends.” 

Your mouth twists up reflexively at the corners, without you meaning to. 

“Have I entered an alternate universe or did you really just crack a smile at me?” he says incredulously, grinning in this mischievous way, like he _caught_ you. 

You frown decidedly at him. It wounds you somewhere strange and deep to know he thinks only in an _alternate universe_ would you smile at him. As if it is not what you existence has become: smiling at his back, at Cassiopeia, at his tail lights as he passes you on the track, leaves you in a cloud of dust. As if your days have not become punctuated by moments during which you admire him. You suppose it’s aways from behind, though, behind a windshield or when he’s turned away from you so that you can drink your fill. You don’t know how to look at boys like him dead-on, so you’ve learned to survive undetected. 

“M’always smiling at you,” you tell him anyway, turning back to the sky, midnight blue and streaked in glitter. Your head is fuzzy with whiskey and you can’t remember why he’s not supposed to know you look the way you do. It doesn’t _matter,_ in the end, because he’s twenty-nine and stupid and probably straight. “It’s your fault you’re an unobservant little shit who doesn’t notice,” you joke. 

“M’ _not_ unobservant,” he pushes, settling closer to you, so much to there’s an electric brush of your arms together. You move yours, fold it defensively over your chest. “I try and make you laugh, all the time. I count your smiles. You’re just like. _Way_ more stoic than you think.” 

“Maybe just hard to read,” you offer, thumbing over your mustache before letting your hand fall into the space between your bodies, metal still hot under your skin. “Learn to be a better reader.” 

“Oh, I _am,_ ” he says, shifting his hand so his little finger nudges against yours. It’s probably an accident but it _feels_ deliberate, so the whole of you freezes and you can’t remember anything, the whole vast desert sky whittled down to this moment: Lightning McQueen touching your hand like a girl in a movie theater on her first date. The whiskey rolls in your gut, and he crosses your pinkies, like swords, hooks them before letting you go. “You think you’re just teaching me to race dirt,” he says, gaze still fixed on the moon. “But there’s all sorts of shit m’learning. You just wait. I’ll figure you out, old man.” 

“Sure,” you mumble, because you don't trust your voice with more than a single, ragged syllable. 

A few moments pass with nothing but a dry warm wind rattling through the saguaros and a hooting owl to break the silence. Then, after awhile, you say, “M’glad you have a desert, now, kid.” An after another two beats, “And friends.” 

“Me too,” he mumbles, and rolls over onto his side so he’s facing you, breath hot and warm on your shoulder. You close your eyes, knowing the stars are multiplying above you. You count them, like some men count sheep. 


	8. crash

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I don't remember what the prompt was! 
> 
> tags: hurt/comfort, established, injury, fluff.

It’s not a bad crash. The car doesn’t flip or roll, Mcqueen doesn’t hit his head. He and a dozen other cars skid out off the track and there’s a pile up he narrowly escapes, exiting the roll cage with smoke and a back ache and that’s all, somehow. Like he’s blessed, like heaven knows how Doc needs him and is watching out for him as a result. And he loses, _of cours_ e he loses, but he’s alright in the ways that count, and at at least he makes the top ten. He tries to be grateful for that, instead of self-hating for fucking up in the first place. He keeps replaying it in his mind: the static, the crunch, the way he saw Doc get up from where he was sitting in the pit, Guido holding him back as the medics rushed to the crash site. McQueen remembers feeling safe in that moment, knowing Doc would run to him, if he could. 

Now, he’s here. Out for the next two days of the Grand Prix, one of the very last races of the _season_ , infuriatingly bedridden and not even with any sort of _broken bone_. Just with whiplash, his neck and back so sore he can hardly move. Doc keeps telling him he’s fine, _lucky_ even, this is the sort of injury that heals up after a few days, won’t put him out longer than a week, at best. And he knows all this, knows he shouldn’t complain to someone like Doc, who _really_ crashed, once upon a time.

But still. It hurts, dampens his pride. He’s sad and grumpy and all the continental breakfasts in the world can’t improve the view from the hotel bed.

“Better?” Doc says, interrupting McQueen’s daytime TV binge. He’s just come back from the nearest grocery store and he’s got bags with him, looking like some stylish farmer’s market grandpa, or something. It’s so sexy, his salt and pepper hair combed and gelled back from his brow because he never goes out in public without doing his hair like that. McQueen he sure he’s the only person whose seen him with his hair-ungelled and messy and rucked up between fingers in the last 25 years, at least, and he loves it. Doc and his groceries (not take out, _groceries_ , such an old fucking man), soften him up a little, but he’s committed to wallowing over this, so he forces himself to frown.

“You’re blocking my Judge Judy,” he complains, gesturing loosely.

“Oh,” Doc says, raising his dark brows, blue eyes skittering over McQueen’s body, the way he’s lying pitifully in bed like some 16th century heroine with consumption. “Didn’t know you were actually _watching_ that shit.” he sits down on the edge of the bed, so big and broad for these white sheets, this cheap room. McQueen wishes his back didn’t hurt so bad, he’d pitch forward, climb him like a tree, bite him right on the back of his neck where there’s a little whorl of scar tissue in the shape of a teardrop from a crash. Not _the_ crash, just _a crash_. McQueen wonders if they’re all crashing until they reach the big one, the last one. The crash that ends them, makes them into mentors, pit-crew. Or kills them. He sighs, pouting.

“I feel like shit,” he admits.

“Yeah, I know kid,” Doc says gruffly, clapping him on the thigh, firm and gentle all at once. “I brought you some of those garbage cup of noodle things you like.”

“Enabling my MSG addiction? You’re the best,” Mcqueen admits, eyes flicking longingly to and room-provided electric kettle. “I’m sorry I’m acting so miserable. I know you’re like, probably thinking I’m a giant baby.”

“What, you? Twenty something kid, knocked around a little, crying from his death bed? To an old timer like me with a pins in his knee and arthritis? Nah. Not a chance,” he says, eyes so warm and twinkly McQueen melts a little, sighing.

“It’s just. M’not used to not being able to move, you know? My neck,” he says, rubbing it gingerly. “I can’t even turn my head fast.”

“Then don’t,” Doc says, leaning forward so his hot, minty breath huffs out over McQueen’s shoulder. “Let it heal, son. Give that body a break.” It makes him shiver, always _does_ , always _has_ , even before he knew what it meant. Back when he first moved to Radiator Springs and wanted _so badly_ to win Doc’s approval, to be hugged by him, complimented by him, rough affirmations whispered against his ear after a great practice. He knows _now_ though, has for a long time, so he squirms closer, even though it hurts a little.

“Are _you_ gonna give it a break?” McQueen asks, raising his eyebrows, pulling back a bit to study Doc’s face as he teases him, acts coy.

“You bet I am,” he says, leaning in and pressing a tender, lingering kiss on Mcqueen’s neck, right over the pulse. “Believe it or not, hot-shot, I got some self control. I can sit here, all I want, giving you nothing but kisses until you’re better.”

McQueen presses up into his mouth, the scratchy-hot-goodness of his mustache. He loves the way his kisses are soft and prickly all at once, just like the rest of him. “Hmph,” he says, tilting his head a bit so Doc can kiss him more, down the tendons in his throat to his shoulder, fingers coming to rest gently on the top-most knob of his spine. “Boring.”

“Not for me,” Doc breathes, breath tickling as he pulls away, leaving McQueen trembling. “You want me to put some soup on?”

“Sure,” he says, sighing. And he’s not gonna tell Doc, but his neck _does_ feel better after being kissed. A little.


	9. control

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt was to give up control! 
> 
> Tags: sex, power dynamics, teasing, self loathing, insecurity, romance, hurt/comfort

You have his arms pinned over his head like Christ, like Sebastian, though there are no thorns nor arrows in his side. Just the pressure of your knees bracketing him, keeping his narrow chest there under you where he can’t get away. It hurts because your left knee and hip haven’t been right since you crashed and spending any time on them always makes you quake, but it’s easy to ignore it when Lightning McQueen is pinned beneath you and you’re inhaling his breath, like you can catch his youth like a cold and forget all the parts of this that scare you. 

You drink the terrible, glorious sight of him in. His heaving ribcage, pale and dappled in soft freckles like brown sugar all over his shoulders. Nipples pink, drawn tight and suckable. The shift of muscle and skin over bone as he squirms. The matted down, strawberry blonde mess of hair under his flexing arms. You want to lick into them, breathe the undiluted, fresh-from-the-shower, no-deodorant smell from his skin, but all you can do right now is look at him and feel your knee waver, begin to shake. 

“Don’t hurt yourself, Grandpa,” he teases, grinning one of this warm, crooked smiles, the sort that twists up in places so deep in your gut you feel like they haven’t been touched in decades. Untilled soil, cracked as a lone seed sprouts. “Give it up already.” 

You don’t even remember what you’re fighting over, what you’re supposed to give up. There’s an object or a confession, you’re sure, something forgotten, but whatever it is, it represents the same thing: control. Which of you is going to cede to the other and allow himself to be spread out and kissed and sucked and bitten and mauled. You want it to be him because aside from craving it, _(_ the way he tastes, the sounds he makes, the sweat that springs dewy and hot to his lower back just before he comes on your cock), it’s _easier,_ to be the one in control. As good as his hands feel, as infernally hot as his mouth is, burning up all over you, there’s something positively terrifying about being loved.

After all, this _entire thing_ is hard to believe. Not just the part where he wants you the same way you want him. 

That he wants you in the _first_ place, that the profound vastness of your desire doesn’t disgust him or frighten him away, is astounding. You can’t even _begin_ to accept the reality beyond that simple fact, which is that _he wants you back_ in the same hungry, desperate way. Maybe you could rationalize a man like Lightning McQueen getting off on being worshipped, but to see him rub his face up the inside of your thigh, eyes shut and lashes fluttering in reverence like a man lost to prayer before he takes you in his mouth and groans like its holy? It doesn’t fit into the concept you have of yourself, or of the concept you have of him. The withered corpse and the golden boy, the broken bone and the tourniquet. _You are beautiful and I am the King of Nothing_ you want to tell him but then he gets on his knees and uses his tongue and kisses you after the fact, tasting of salt and darkness. All of it robs you so that there are no words left, and in the end, you end up telling him nothing. 

Allowing him to put you in a place where you’re forced to accept the depth of his feeling always breaks you in ways you’re not quite ready to be broken. You’re prepared for him to leave, to throw you away, to rethink this crazy thing you’re doing together. But you’re _not_ prepared for him to lean over you and kiss away your tears and tell you how much he needs this. You never prepared for that. You never built yourself up for that _particular_ brand of pain. 

It'll hurt that much more, when he _does_ leave. The he does throw you away. He’s somehow certain this will never happen, but you're much older than him, and you know how things go. 

You continue to grapple, but things are weakening. 

He somehow frees his leg and hooks it around your back, throwing you off balance. Pain shoots up your knee and you half to roll off of him, releasing his wrists, and he grins triumphantly as he swings his thigh over your hip and pins you. The whole of him is surprisingly heavy and strong, even though you _know_ how hard he trains, how much more there is to him than that which meets the eye. 

“I let you do that,” you lie, quirking up an eyebrow, and then he’s dipping down and kissing your throat, once again shocking you into silence and shattering your illusions. He is not golden and he’s not stopping you from bleeding, he’s tarnished and letting you gush out onto the bed, delighting in all the ways in which he ruins you. It’s miraculous, that his want is something you don’t even have to question or doubt because it’s _palpable._ You can feel it in the sweet-hot suck of his mouth, the thunder of his heart as his bare chest brushes against yours. 

“Sure you did,” he murmurs, nuzzling into the space behind your ear, rocking his hips against you so that you grunt, breath catching. “M’gonna keep you here,” he whispers then, low and hot in your ear. “Kiss you until you’re too hard to stand it. And then m’gonna sit on your cock, ride it good and long until you come in me.” 

He says each of these things slowly, carefully, like he’s thought about it because he probably _has_. Your heart pounds so hard your ribs might crack and you’re too _old_ for this, for crumbling to dust in some young man’s hands as he has his way with you, treats you like you’re worth treating good. It doesn't make sense, but here he is, shivering with his eyes half-lidded and his sweats tented, not because he took a pill like you have to sometimes, but because you _turn him on._ Like a miracle. 

You think about throwing him off, wrestling him back into the sheets and shutting him up with a hand over that sweet messy mouth. 

Instead you tilt your head back and he kisses you rough and deep. It’s so good, so wet, so hungry, and you give it all up, like a message written in beach-sand being soothed away by the tide. No one will ever know what it says but you, and maybe him, because he's always watching so closely. 

He sucks the control from your body like venom, and you let him have it. It will taste of salt, and of darkness, and you thought those were things you had to hold onto, but maybe you were wrong about that, too. 


	10. way to go

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my goodness, I've written tons of drabbles since the last time I updated this, so I'm dumping a few here while I kill time. This one was written for the dialogue prompt "way to go, kid." 
> 
> CW for discussions of nonmonogamy and open relationships, and heavy drinking. It's not angsty though.

It’s noon and he still hasn’t gotten out of bed, sprawled there in a mountain of hotel sheets whimpering when you come back from picking up lunch for the both of you. “Hungover?” you ask him, stocking the mini-fridge, refusing to look up. 

“Not even,” he groans, rolling over laboriously. “Just fucking sore. I think I threw out my back.” 

“Way to go, kid,” you snap dryly, sighing before you collapse on the couch with a cream soda and a subway sandwich. “Doing what?” 

“I dunno. Dancing with Mater, I guess. Trying to keep up with that guy when he dances is a fucking work out, let me tell you.” Then, with his voice carefully even in that way it always is when he’s about to say something loaded, “M’getting too old for Grand Prix after parties.

You don’t say anything. He came back to the hotel very late last night, or perhaps very early this morning, smelling like Patron and smoke and sweat and other peoples perfume. You’ve been talking a lot over the last few months about how much you don’t want your age to hold him back from anything. You’re slowing down too much too attend all the post-race festivities, _let_ alone the after-parties, and you don’t want him to retire early or live his life any differently all on account of you.

In theory, you even want him to keep exploring his sexuality, fuck who he wants to fuck, pursue his stupid rivalry with Franchesco he seems to think _isn’t_ rooted in mutual attraction. You want him to stay young. Or, at least you _think_ you do. In practice, it hurts. Like when he shows up at 2am sore from something you didn’t do to him, and it feels like being gutted.

“Why are you so grumpy this morning?” he asks, finally peeling himself off the bed and stumbling towards you after grabbing the gatorade you bought him. “Fuck, my back.” 

“That’s why,” you mumble, gesturing towards him. “I—some part of me hates when I don’t know everything that happens when m’sleeping.” 

His face softens, and he leans into you. “You jealous, old man?” 

“I don’t know,” you lie. But of _course_ you’re jealous. He’s the best goddamned thing that ever happened to you and you _knew_ it was temporary, having him every night, close and hungry, but still. Hurts to see him pull away, hurts to see him sitting gingerly the same way he did the first few times you fucked him. “Did you—was there anyone else last night? S’ok if there was, m’obviously not mad, we talked about it. I just. I want to know. Beats guessing.” 

He shakes his head, chugs some gatorade, and then he kisses you. It’s just a soft, sweet, reassuring kiss, but it tightens your gut all the same, makes you fist into the silky fabric of his boxers possessively. You want to be better than this, but the thought of anyone else getting to touch him is unbearable _. “_ There was no one else,” he tells you as he pulls away, brow pressed to yours, sleep breath sour under the gatorade sweet. “There never is. You— _you’re_ the one who wants to have something open. You’re the one convinced I’m not happy. You wanna know why I ended up hurting myself so bad last night? You’re gonna laugh.”

“Why?” you ask, thumbing over his cheek, closing your eyes. No man should be this lucky, it’s not your _fault_ you’re always doubting the reality of it. 

“There were like, so many girls swarming the VIP area trying to buy be drinks and stuff. I had to have Mater cockblock for me, so he just kept feeding me their drinks and sending them all away. So I got pretty wasted pretty fast. And _then_ decided they would leave me alone and quit trying to get with me if I like, danced like an idiot, so, I was flailing around and tripped over one of those little table things and like, catapulted over the railing. It was so embarrassing. Guido has footage, because he’s a horrible person.” 

You snort, carding a hand through the oily wreck of his hair. “You tried to scare the girls away by _dancing_ bad?” 

“Yep, and it backfired. They all came running with like, cold washcloths and stuff, trying to take care of me. It’s the worst, man, I fucking _hate_ being publicly single. Like ever since people found out Sally and I weren’t together anymore? They swarm,” he shakes his head, pulling away from you and picking at the gatorade label thoughtfully. “You should ask Mater how many times I said I wished I was back at the hotel with you. I really _am_ getting too old for that scene.” 

You don’t know what to say. It feels too raw to admit you spent the whole night pacing and longing for him and trying to convince yourself you wouldn’t fall apart if he somehow ended up in Franchesco’s bed tonight. You thumb back and forth over the jut of his knee, wishing your touch communicated everything inside you. 

“Listen. I know it’s important for you to feel like you’re not the reason I stay home from parties or whatever. And I get that. But Doc— _you are_ the reason. Not in a bad way or like you’re keeping me from things, but like—because going to stuff like that seems fucking _pointless_ when I’ve got the best thing in the world waiting for me,” he pleads, eyes wide and blue and terrible. Your breath catches in your throat, and you think about how much easier it is to push him away before he gets bored and leaves you. And maybe he won’t, maybe this _is_ it for him, but you can’t know that. 

“You really don’t like those parties?” you ask him, cocking your head as you study his face. “It’s really _so_ bad having a bunch of pretty girls fight over you?” 

“Doc. I’m _obligated_ to go to enough stupid events like that. I don’t want to go to the optional ones just because you’re convinced it’s what I secretly need or something. I’d rather stay home and get fucked by my old man.” 

Your stomach drops, tightens like a fist. “Even if he can’t get it up sometimes?” 

“Yeah,” he says, shrugging. “His mouth always works. And uh, hotel cable is sick. I’d rather just watch TV with you than make a fucking fool of myself.” 

You sigh, and reach for him, and he settles into your arms gingerly. As you palm over his back you try to be mindful of where it hurts, the tender bits, the bruises, the scars. “Ok, baby. I’ll try and remember that next time.” 


	11. getting older

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was written for the prompt "You're never this quiet, what's wrong?" 
> 
> CW for aging angst, body insecurity, weight gain, etc. It's also sappy af.

Some time after Lightning turns thirty five, his metabolism slows down a little, the hair at his temples begins to be run through with grey. It wouldn’t even be noticeable if his hair hadn’t also gotten less blonde in the last few years, or perhaps if you didn’t notice every single thing about him, the new lines bunched at the corners of his eyes when he smiles, the soft but firm curve of new flesh just over his waistband you love to cup in your palm when you spoon him at night. He’s getting a little older, sure, but he’s still your _boy,_ still the prettiest looking thing you’ve ever seen. 

So you notice the changes, but you don’t think they _mean_ anything. You certainly don’t think they’re worth talking about, just kissing, touching with heart-clenching reverence like every other part of him. 

Naturally, you have no fucking _idea_ why he starts acting self conscious when you fuck. 

You chalk up the first few times to exhaustion, him being over-worked and you being old and neither of you having energy during the summer-time because it’s scorchingly hot outside and no one is built to sustain 24/7 air conditioning. But then it happens again, his touch listless, his body-language guarded, and you’ve been alive for too goddamned long to not talk about things, so you cup his face, kiss him, and lean over to flick the light on. “Hey!” he says, blinking up at you, hands flying to cover his body like you haven’t seen it ten hundred times in various states of ruin. “What was that for?” 

“You’re never this quiet,” you observe, referring to his alarming lack of gasps, of moans, the litany of filth he’s usually spilling. Most of the time you _blush_ when you fuck Lightning McQueen, but lately you feel like you’re pushing him too hard, wanting too much, grabbing with dirty hands while he covers himself like a victorian lady. It makes you feel like shit. “What’s wrong?” 

“Nothing’s wrong,” he pouts. “Turn the light back off and get back here.” 

“What, you need to fuck in the dark? What’s this _modesty_ thing you’re suddenly playing at?” you ask, narrowing your eyes at him. 

He rolls over dramatically, the shape of his pale shoulder jutting up in such a way you want to touch it, kiss down the slope of it, but you don’t want to let him off the hook so easily. So you sit there, chewing the inside of your cheek, waiting. His voice is muffled by the pillow when he finally says, “Do you still think m’hot? Like are you still attracted to me?”

You scoff, because it’s a fucking _ridiculous_ thing for him to ask. He _knows_ how bad you want him, all the time, how five years hasn’t changed a single thing about that. “Are you kidding me right now?” you ask, and he rolls back over, eyes so sharply blue and sad in this moment you _know_ he’s not kidding, that he’s actually asking you. It’s only _then_ when you think about the grey hairs, the beer belly. “Is this—is this because you’ve gained a little weight?” you ask him, grinning because _god,_ you love him so much, your stupid, vain, pretty-boy who hasn’t figured out you love him for so much more than his good looks. 

“Ugh. The photos from that last press release came back and my jumpsuit was looking _so_ tight. And I’m getting winkles. And going grey _and_ brunette at the same time. It’s just—I dunno. I feel like I’ve aged so much in the last year and like. I need to maintain my reputation as the heartthrob of racing. And a your _significantly_ younger boyfriend.” 

“I didn’t think aging would be a problem for you. _I’m_ totally grey. I have winkles,” you remind him, thumbing at the creases at the tails of his eyes. “You seem to like me anyway.” 

“They’re soft,” he murmurs, reaching out and petting the loose, gathered folds of your throat. “I love your skin. Plus, you were old when I fell in love with you. I looked twenty five. Sometimes I feel like that was all I had going for me, you know?” 

“Oh lord,” you sigh, shifting closer, curling an arm around his naked waist. “Baby, you were a lot of things but you never looked twenty five.” 

He whimpers, rubbing his face into your sternum. “And I have more going for me?” 

“So much. I’d love you when you turned 80, if I actually got to live to see it,” you murmur into his darkening hair. 

He digs his nails into your ribs punishingly. “Don’t you dare talk like that.” 

“M’just saying. I’ll think you’re too handsome for me no matter how tight that jumpsuit gets,” you tell him, sneaking a hand between your bodies to thumb over his stomach. “You know, you can always buy a looser one.” 

“Ugh. I know.” 

“Look on the bright side, kid. You’re a NASCARdriver. It’s one of the few professional sports where the world doesn’t end if you’re not some buff-n-tough fitness guru. You’ll still win races, look at Mario Andretti.” 

“I don’t want to look like Mario Andretti, Doc,” he whines, biting you gently, before his mouth turns wet and sweet. “Just want to know you still think m’fuckable.” 

You roll him over onto his back and get between his legs, laughter huffing out at the way he yelps in surprise, struggles as you pin his arms over his head so you can look at him, really _look_ at him. All his softness, the places where he’s not as sharp and firm anymore, his smile lines, the creases through his brow. “I’ll show you how fuckable you are,” you mumble, licking his Adam’s apple, feeling it bob under your tongue. “You look like Robert Redford.”

He gasps, writhes under you. “You want to fuck Robert Redford?” 

“No,” you tell him, (though there were times in your life you certainly wouldn’t have said no to something like that). “Wanna fuck you, baby.” 

He grins, and there are so many lines gathered at his eyes, fissures built by laughter, by happiness. You kiss every one. 


	12. mean it

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for the prompt "you don't mean that." 
> 
> CW for angst, pining, unrequited love (or at least thinking it's unrequited,) and mentions of porn.

Lightning doesn’t _leave_ sometimes. He just pops a tent and settles down, like he knows you’re too lonely and in love with him to say no. 

Sally broke up with him so he’s living with Mater in the meantime, though plenty of nights he crashes on your couch after training, has too many beers to drive himself home even though its a few blocks and he could probably make it. You don’t let him; doesn’t seem right. So, he bundles up in your comforter, with one of your spare pillows, and in the morning when you wake at seven like clock-work for your coffee, he’s there, blinking in the light on your couch, grumbling. “You know I’m an early riser, boy,” you remind him as you put the kettle on the stove. 

Every time, he catches a few more hours in _your_ bed, and then you’re forced to reckon with that: the smell of his drool on your pillow, his sleep-sweat on your sheets. A cruel glimpse into the _impossible_ dream of what it would be like if he were yours. Your boy, to hold after midnight, to wake up beside.

You should learn to say no, but you don’t even have a good _reason_ to send him away that doesn’t bely how you feel about him. How you want him. So to maintain your cover you let him in time and time again, tongue in your cheek and teeth in your lip. Enduring the fantasy, the flesh and blood version of it real in your _house_ all the goddamned time. ‘

He’s tipsy, now, spread out on your couch with his head only moments away from your shoulder as he shifts, too drunk to go home, unless he stays up another hour which your doubt he’ll be up for. “Thank god you don’t have a boyfriend,” he slurs, looking up at you between episodes of _Wild Wild West._ “He’d _hate_ me for always being over, monopolizing all your time.” 

“Are you suggesting that if I had a man in my life, he’d be jealous of you?” It comes out stunned and incredulous, because _jesus,_ the shit he says sometimes, the layers of blindness and stupidity supposedly _straight_ men cloak themselves in. Lightning confuses you, makes you wonder, but you’ve learned to brush that away. He has no _idea_ what he does to you. It’s best you play dumb, too. 

“No! I mean. I dunno. Just that I’d be annoying. Like, you give a shit because you’re my crew chief, but. Who knows what your theoretical boyfriend would think. Hell. I don’t even know what sort of guys you like. Maybe he would be arty like Liberace or something and hate that I did sports. I dunno. What sort of guys _do_ you like?” 

You shake your head, not prepared or willing to go down _this_ path with Lightning McQueen. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t have a boyfriend, so—”

“Yeah fine but! What if you did? What would he look like, what do you think is hot?” he begs, turning away from the TV to face you, cheeks red, lips wet from being licked. The prettiest fucking boy you’ve been close to in ages, right here on your couch, asking questions you don’t know how to answer without admitting _you, you, you. Always you. “_ Do you think George Clooney is hot? _I_ think George Clooney is the _man,_ my mom loved ER. If I liked guys, it would be guys like George Clooney in ER. Heroic dudes saving kids and stuff.” 

You glare at him, thinking how perfectly cruel it is he seemingly has some thing for _doctors._ You resent him and his daddy issues, and _yet,_ you allow him to stay, time and time again. “M’not discussing this with you, kid.” 

“Why not?! I won’t judge you, or be weird about it I just—I just want to _know_.”

“Why?” 

“Because! You’re my friend and I like knowing stuff about you. And because George Clooney is hot.” 

“You don’t mean that,” you snap, turning back to the TV, worrying your lower lip between your teeth furiously. You hate every time he makes you wonder, every doubt he sows in your soil. You’re too old for hope, for folly. 

“I do! He’s hot! I want to know if a gay guy agrees!” 

“He’s—he’s fine. Not my type, though, not—“ _soft enough_ you want to say, but you can’t because a boy like Lightning McQueen probably thinks George Clooney is pretty damn soft, can hardly imagine a softer man. He doesn’t know about slender legs dusted in downey blonde hair, the sort of twink porn you jack off to, ever since you saw him on TV and he fucked you up, drove you away from the 50s movie-star fantasies you’ve harbored since you realized you liked men. “I loved Carey Grant, and James Dean. When I was a young man,” you finally admit, cheeks hot even as you force out a warped, dated truth. 

“Ok, and what about now, as an old man?” he asks, eyes hazy and bright as they lock in on you. 

_You, you, you. Always you._

Shaking your head, your drag your gaze back to the TV, trying hard to drown the stupid, stubborn flicker of hope in your chest. “It doesn’t matter, kid,” you tell him. “Let it go.” 


	13. pillow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for the prompt "You're the one who left it laying around." 
> 
> No CW I think? It's mostly just sweet. Established relationship, romance.

There are so many little things about him that break your heart, make your breath catch in your throat and stay lodged there, like time’s stopped, like you’re choking. 

The worst of them is the way he steals your pillow. 

You always wake up before he does on the days he doesn’t have to train early, your internal clock hardwired from decades of night shifts during your residency, working through dawn on no sleep ruining the hours past sunrise for you forever. So, you disentangle yourself from him if he’s draped across you, press a kiss to the slope of his shoulder if he’s not, and slip away. 

No matter how hard you try to not wake him up, he always senses your departure from the throes of dreaming and stirs, rolls over, frowns. Then, as you shrug your robe on and grab your glasses from the bedside table so you can head to the living room and read the paper, he always does the same damn thing: he finds your pillow blindly, grabs it, and rubs his face into it. Inhales the remnants of you every morning as you leave, like he can’t sleep without the smell of your skin as close as possible. 

It’s how you know, for sure and for real, Lightning McQueen is as in love with you as he says he is. 

For months, whole _year,_ even, you were convinced it was a mistake. Something born from the newness of his gay awakening, his quarter life crisis. But not love. It takes more than a boy’s _insistence_ to convince you you’re anything more than unlovable. That you didn’t miss your chance when you wrecked your car. 

But then. half asleep, with his eyes crusted shut and sheet-creases through his face, he zeros in on your pillow, and buries his face in it. Every morning, like clockwork.

And when he wanders out some time after eleven blinking and grinning and complaining and demanding coffee, the first thing he does is collapse onto the couch beside you, and hides his face in the ditch of your neck. Kiss your cheek, or the corner of your mouth. And these are the things you’d do to _him,_ if you were the one waking up hours later. It’s baffling, to see him act as you would. It makes it harder to convince yourself this is something other than love, anyway. 

Sometimes your eyes get heavy before he finds his way out to the living room and so you head back to bed, never to sleep but to rouse him, so you have something to stay awake for. You’ll pry your pillow from his arms and wedge it under your head before you pull him close. “Stealing my stuff again, kid?” You’ll rumble, lips behind his ear as he stretches, groans. 

“You’re the one who left it laying around,” he sighs back, settling into you. 

He doesn’t care about the pillow anymore because he wants to press his lips to your throat, nuzzle into your chest, smell you, breathe you, drown in you like you’re something worth drowning in. 

And this is the shit that breaks your heart, so you sift your fingers into his hair, kiss his forehead, and work on accepting the fact you _must_ be something more than unlovable. He’s the proof and he’s here and real and breathing, blood a hot thrum under his skin. 


	14. sick

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this because I was sick, haha. 
> 
> CW for insecurity, sick fic. Mostly just romantic cuddles here tbh.

Lighting’s complaining about a scratchy throat sometime after practice, and by dinner he’s curled up in Doc’s bed, hair stuck to his forehead while he sweats his fever out. 

“Oh my god,” he wails for the tenth time, rubbing his face all over the pillow in shame, shivering while Doc lays another blanket over him and tucks him in tight. “I can’t believe this is happening. I had tomorrow off, too, I was looking forward to fucking all night, sleeping in.” 

“Guess your body had other plans,” Doc says gruffly, laying a palm over Lightning’s clammy brow, testing his temperature before sanitizing the thermometer with one of those little alcohol pads and offering it to him. “Open up, baby.” 

Lightning pouts, then relents, like this is _not_ the way he wanted to be told to open up, _not_ the preferred circumstances. Doc ignores the ridiculous face he’s making and pops the metal end under his tongue. “Thith ith humiliating,” he mumbles around the intrusion. 

“It’s just a flu, nothing to get bent out of shape over. We all get them. Even doctors, like me.”

There are a few blessed moments of whine-free quiet while the thermometer’s in his mouth, and Doc takes the opportunity to gently rub his back through the layers of blanket, knowing he can get away with it right now. Lightning’s been decidedly resistant to _any_ coddling, even though he clearly wants it, _needs_ it. Doc’s good with fussy patients though, has always had nerves of steel and a tireless bedside manner. 

“Ok, times up,” he says gently, taking the thermometer out and checking it. “Hm, 100 now, it’s dropped two degrees. That’s good, you just keep sweating.” 

“All over your sheets,” he grumbles self deprecatingly. “You’re gonna have to wash them.” 

“Wash my sheets every weekend, I can let one go.” 

“Every weekend? Ugh, god, how do you ever put up with me and my nasty former-straight bachelor hygiene habits?” he groans, shutting his eyes so tight they bunch at the corners. Doc carefully thumbs over the tightness, tries to smooth it out. “You won’t have to anymore after tonight, I bet. Probably never gonna wanna sleep with me again, after seeing me like this.” 

Doc would roll his eyes at such absurdity on a normal day, but his boy’s got him all soft right now, so pifitul with his soaked hair and hazy eyes, so instead he just _laughs,_ floored by the idea anything on earth could make him _not_ want to sleep with Lightning McQueen. “What are you even talking about?” 

“I dunno!! I guess I just like. Assumed you’re into me at least in part because m’a hot piece of ass most of the time but like. You’re seeing me at my _worst_ right now. Gonna move on to some go-go dancer after this.” 

“My god, you’re fever-delirious, kid. You should hear yourself, you just called yourself a _hot piece of ass._ Plus, you know what happens when you assume things.” 

“What? What happens?” he slurs, pouting again. 

“You suffer the tragic misfortune of being _wrong._ Which, I guess, isn’t new territory for you,” Doc teases, clambering down on the bed so he can curl an arm around his waist, kiss the perspiration damp back of his neck. “I love taking care of you,” he says in a gentler voice now that their eyes aren’t locked. “Love you. Don’t mind you being sick in my bed. Hell, kinda like it. Like having all of you. Every little bit, all mine.” 

“Don’t you _dare_ make me cry, m’already all stuffed up, it would be a mucus _nightmare,”_ Lightning gripes, but he’s rolling over in Doc’s arms, he’s pressing his face into his shoulder, inhaling from his clothes, skin even hotter than it usually is, so hot it burns. There are already tears in the corners of those bunched-shut eyes, and Doc kisses them away stubbornly, protests be damned. 


	15. date

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the prompt "when was the last time we went on a real date?" 
> 
> CW for marriage talk! Again mostly just sweet and sappy.

“When’s the last time we went on a date?” Lightning asks you, head pillowed on your thigh while you half watch some racing documentary, neck deep in a crossword while he scrolls on his phone. 

“A date?” you ask, peering at him under the rim of your glasses, his face a sweet blonde-framed blur, since your long-distance vision is going, too. “Baby, we never went on dates. We just spent three years fucking nonstop behind locked doors until you calmed down. Then we’d go to hotel bars after practice, and fuck _after_ that.”

“Well, that’s stupid. We’ve been together…what now? Like five an a half, six years?” 

“Six years, two months,” you mumble. It’s not like you count, you just _know,_ know the exact date you stopped welcoming death with open arms and pulled him into them, instead. You know when you changed, when you started seeing in color again.

“Wellll, everyone here knows about us already, so we should go on a proper date for our six year and three month anniversary. Have a nice dinner at the Wheel Well.” 

“What, you want a proposal, too? Want me to get down on my knee and give you a ring or something?” You’re joking, mostly, talking about how straight people do all these _things_ to prove they’re in love. Things you don’t need. 

But he sits up, looks at you sudden and fierce, your reflection swimming and staring back at you in his dark dark pupils. “Well _yeah,_ now that we’re talking about it. We probably _should_ get married, or like a civil partnership or whatever. Since you’re getting older and you never know—”

“Wait,” you say, shaking your head, suddenly hot all over, tight throated. “You want—you’d want that?” 

“Um, don’t you?” he asks you, cocking his head, expression incredulous. “I mean, s’not like I’m ever gonna wanna be with anyone else, so—”

You cut him off with a kiss, surprising him, surprising _yourself_. You’ve spent so many years telling yourself marriage wasn’t for men like you, a stable future and the legal loose ends all tied up was the stuff of dreams, of fantasies, a future you were too old to ever live long enough to witness. But here he is, this golden boy with so many years ahead of him, willing to throw half away on you. “I’ll take you to the Wheel well for our anniversary,” you promise. “The rest—we have to talk about. But I’ll listen.” 

He kisses back, eyes fluttering closed, brow pressing to yours. You realize you’ve been braced for him to leave for so long you didn’t even _pause_ to give him credit for how he’s stayed. Stayed and stayed, like a tattoo, ink deep beneath your skin. 

“Deal,” he murmurs, petting the back of your neck. 


	16. romance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the prompt "can't you be romantic for once?" 
> 
> This takes place after Cars 3!!! I've been dabbling in writing them older and its so fun mostly because I love Cruz and writing about her dragging the shit out of them constantly.

“Hey,” Lightning says, like it’s an all new idea, like he thought of it _here,_ at a sponsor’s event in the middle of nowhere Virginia, champagne flute half full in his hand as he turns to you. “Maybe we should dance?” 

“Are you fucking crazy,” you say in a hush, tearing your eyes away from him. “That sort of thing gets you kicked out of the races, here.” 

He pouts, shuffles in his standard issue folding chair. “Doc, m’not racing this season, remember? You’re not even my crew chief, you’re my _guest_. Plus, everyone is trashed here. They’re not gonna notice if two old guys—”

“You’re forty. Only a month ago you were trying to convince me you _weren’t_ old. Also, you _really_ want to risk Cruz’s standing with these conservative moneybags _just_ for a single dance? Not worth it,” you end on, a note of finality making him sigh, frowning in a very resigned fashion. 

“Can’t you be romantic, for once?” he grinds out then, and _shit,_ that really pisses you off, because you’re _plenty_ of romantic. You’re the one who used to buy him flowers when he won a race so he would come back to them in your hotel room, you even let him put on jazz records and haul you up on the couch, because you don’t have anything against _dancing,_ just doing it in public, here, when there are consequences. He may be forty but in some ways he’s still the stupid, naive rookie you scraped of the main road through Radiator Springs and hooked up to Bessie. 

“Oh,” you snap, raising your eyebrows, sitting up forcefully enough the chair scrapes against the floor of the banquet hall noisily. He’s right about one thing; most folks are too trashed to notice. “You think I’m not romantic? Why don’t you meet me in the bathroom, hotshot,” you challenge him, straightening your collar. “How about that? Better than a dance?” 

He stares at you for a moment, visibly baffled, and you’re glad you can still _get_ him like this, catch him off guard, his pretty mouth parted and his eyes wide and blue. He recovers quick, shakes his head and downs the rest of his champagne. “Fuck yeah,” he says, following you as you shoulder your way out. “Way better.” 


	17. wishes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the prompt "You look pretty good for your age." 
> 
> CW for angst, pining, unrequited love, drinking.

It’s just past last call at the Wheel Well and neither of you are fit to drive, so Lightning decides you should sober up outside in the moonlight. 

You do most anything he says whether your drunk or not, so that’s how you end up standing there watching him pitch pebbles over the guard rail, clumsy and sweat-glistening every time his arm flexes. “You be careful,” you tell him, thumbing over your mustache. “Don’t you dare fall over that thing.” 

“You want a rock to throw?” he asks earnestly, weaving back to you, cheeks flushed, hair everywhere. You wish so badly you could pull him into you arms, hold him tight and fierce and have that moment of heat and pressure say all the things you could never put words to. Every terrible, astounding thing that you feel for him him. How he changed your life, how you thought you heart was broken before him, how you never thought you’d step foot inside a speedway again, but you did and it’s his fault, his influence, his smile you’re chasing to the ends of the earth. Instead you hold your hand out, keeping it steady while he drops a few chunks of gravel into it. 

“Are you aiming for anything?” you ask him, raising an eyebrow. 

“Nah, not really. Just feels good to throws shit,” he explains, lacing his fingers behind his neck, exposing the sweat marks in his underarms. You tear your gaze away and chuck a rock. 

“You ever see _It’s a Wonderful Life?”_ you ask him. 

“George Bailey, angels getting their wings, yeah, I think so? Like as a kid. Or maybe I’ve just seen soap opera versions of it. My mom was big on soaps, I watched a lot every time I stayed home sick from school.” 

“Well, there’s a scene where they break glass in an old house. Make wishes,” you explain, even though you’re not sure why. This is dangerous territory to discuss with him, wishes, futures. Houses you wish you could share with Lightning McQueen, glass shattered in his name. You hate your romantic’s heart, which has gotten softer and stupider since you met him and he fucked you up, saved you, changed you. 

“You can make a wish! Hold on, we both can, gimme one,” he demands, grabbing a pebble from you. “I really want to know what you’re gonna wish for, is that weird?” 

“Isn’t that the whole point of wishes, not telling folks?” 

“Right, but what if I guess? I bet I know, you want—you want to race again! Go back in time and tell them all to fuck off and let the Hudson Hornet back on the track,” he declares, eyes two bright spots in the darkness. 

You laugh, shaking your head. “Maybe I would have wished for that ten years ago…but nah. Not now. M’old, kid, m’only getting older. I don’t want to race, I want—-someone to get older with, maybe,” you end up confessing, fingers curling tight around the rock in your hand so the edges dig into your palms, leave bloodless indents. 

“Hey,” Lightning says gently, shifting his weight, staring off into the dark nothing beyond the guardrail. “Why don’t you date, Doc? It’s the twenty first century, I bet there are loads of guys online looking for the same thing you are, you know?” 

You shake your hand, cough bitterly. You think of happy endings and movie kisses and his golden hair, how soft it is under your palm when you ruffle it up. He’s everything you’ve always wanted and will never have, a single wish, a window left unbroken. “S’not that easy.”

“Why not? You look pretty good for your age. Damn good. I feel like you’d have guys hanging off of you put yourself out there instead of spending every night drinking with me.” 

You snort, shaking your head and finally chucking the rock. You hear it tumble through brush, dislodge sand. “Hey!” he says, bending down and scrambling for another one in the dirt. “No you don’t. We’re gonna find another for you and then we’re gonna throw them again at the same time and make wishes, for real.Like in _It’s a Wonderful Life._ You can pry superstition from my cold dead hands, old man.” 

You sigh, and wait for him, because you do most anything he says whether your drunk or not. 

“To some sexy future boyfriend for you,” he says after its all over, turning back to you with warm, twinkling eyes. You don’t tell him what you wish for, even though you are made of wishes. 


	18. nap

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the prompt "pillows are overrated." 
> 
> CW for pining, angst, etc. This one is ACTUALLY short sorry everyone.

He falls asleep on your shoulder and you might stop breathing. 

You wait until the next commercial break to gently rouse him. “Hey, kid,” you murmur. “What are you doing.” 

“Um,” he says, blinking, settling closer to you which is the worst possible thing he could do. “Sleeping I guess. Taking a little nap.” 

“Well. There’s a whole unoccupied section of the couch. And pillows that aren’t me.” 

“Pillows are overrated,” he grumbles, rubbing his cheek into your shoulder. “Plus, your robe is soft. Like way soft. You don’t mind, do you?” 

You do, and you don’t. Or, you desperately want him to touch you but not under these circumstances, not half-awake in the middle of a M.A.S.H marathon in some shitty hotel in Nashville before a race. Not when he’ll never, ever be yours, and all your do is love him recklessly and self-destructively. 

“Knock yourself out,” you mumble because you apparently hate yourself, rubbing the bridge of your nose between your eyes, sighing. “Just don’t drool on me.”


	19. pick up lines

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt for this one was "pick up lines only work when I'm drunk." 
> 
> CW for pining, angst, heavy drinking. This one is like...sort of in the same universe as wishes?

“C’mon, kid. Time to get you to bed,” Doc tells Lightning, approaching him where he’s splayed out on a hotel _carpet_ where he decided to collapse in nothing but boxers and a towel, eyes unfocused, lips parted over a dreamy smile. 

“Pick up lines only work when I’m drunk,” he replies, which is alarming because he’s _shitfaced_ and Doc _certainly_ did not utter a single pick up line. He would _never._ He’s more the pine until you die, type. 

“Jesus. How many drinks did you have, boy?” 

“Um. I don’t know? They just kept! People kept buyin’ em’ for me,” he gripes as Doc hooks his hands under his underarms and hauls the sloppy dead weight of him up towards the bed, where he dumps him with a clumsy bounce. “I hate being famous.” 

“You love being famous,” Doc reminds him, shaking his head, trying to wrestle him under the sheets even though he’s not helping _at all,_ just lolling around there, eyes big and blue and terrible. 

‘ _You_ love being famous,” Lightning mumbles, reaching out and patting his cheek. 

“M’not famous anymore.” 

“You’re famous to me!” he argues nonsensically, rolling over _finally_ so Doc can get the towel out from under heath him, tuck him in. “Hey Doc,” he says after a moment, blinking and hazy, still so fucking pretty even a mess like this that Doc’s heart clenches at the sound of his own slurred name. “You know how you’re gay’n’stuff?” 

Doc’s gut clenches at the and he pulls away, wishing he didn’t have to touch the burn of Lightning’s skin as he guides his legs back in the bed when they begin to spill over the side. “Yeah,” he says. “I know.”

“Well like. Do you think you ever, might, I dunno. Do you ever find me attractive?” he asks, as easy as he might ask about the best way to shift on a dirt-track.

Doc rolls his eyes, hating the pang of longing that shoots through his body. He’s found Lightning attractive before he even met him and he was just some hotshot with an ego winning too much on TV. And he hoped that would go away when he got to know him but it just got worse, grew and grew until it overtook his chest, choked it full of ivy. Now he can’t fucking breathe, and Lightning is drunk in a hotel bed, asking a man whose in love with him if he finds him _attractive,_ even though he won’t remember the answer in the morning. Doc would think it was hell, if he hadn’t already lived through years of that, the ache of which has been miraculously _lessened_ by this kid busting into his town. “You’re a good lookin’ kid,” he settles on. “Go to sleep.” 

“Noooo me being good looking is different than you thinking m’hot. I want you to think I’m like, _Hot,”_ he explains, gesturing with a sloppy hand. 

_“Kid,”_ Doc pleads, raking a hand though his hair. “Don’t you do this to me.” 

“Hey, s’ok. S’alright if you don’t think so, I get it. But you should. If you did, I—damn. I’d just. I’d like that. I’d like it a lot, you don’t even know.”

He sounds weirdly sad, and Doc does _not_ have time to wonder about what _that_ means, not tonight. 

“Lightning McQueen,”he scolds, shutting of the light to hide his blush, his pain, his ache, his foolish hope. “Go the fuck to sleep.” 


	20. first place in the rain

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this for a request on tumblr. Established, mild internalized homophobia, public kissing.

You’re in Orange County for a race, and Lightning McQueen never visits California without dragging you to at least one beach. 

The weather isn’t great for it this trip, but he’s not the sort of boy who gets slowed down by inclement weather, so you end up there on a Wednesday morning, as it’s only reprieve in the relentless rain that’s been pelting the whole trip, making the track so slick and dangerous your heart’s been lodged up your throat for three days. It’s still grey outside but you don’t even care, he raced good and stayed safe and you’ll be heading back to Radiator Springs this afternoon, so you relax there on a hotel towel, watching him run around in the surf like it were sunny, like it were summer. He’s the sun and summer too, so maybe it _is._

You squint in the pale-grey light, heels dug in sand while he swims, plunges, chases seagulls up and down the beach like a kid. The only sound save for waves crashing against packed sand is his cheering and whooping, his laughter and you close your eyes, listen to it, think about home. 

“Water’s not too cold, you should come in,” he tells you through chattering teeth as he jogs back up to the beach, collapsing onto his towel. His nipples are drawn tight, skin shivery and goose-pimpled, so you know he’s lying. 

“I’ll pass,” you say fondly instead. 

He throws an arm over his eyes and lies there panting, dripping, hair slicked across his brow and so dark it’s a rich brown. You look at him, then catch yourself staring, tear your gaze away before you remember you don’t have to do that anymore. It’s the craziest, most improbable thing, but you’re _allowed_ to look at Lightning McQueen, trace the lines of his heaving chest with hungry, longing eyes. You’ll even get to touch it, behind drawn curtains and locked doors, you’ll get to kiss him, taste the salt on his lips. It’s been nearly a year you’ve been so lucky, but you don’t think you’ll ever get used to such a thing, so in moments you forget that you don’t have to hide. Seventy years worth of habits is a lot to break, though. 

“What’re you looking at?” he asks, grinning at you. 

“You know,” you scoff. 

“Thinking about anything?” He says innocently, spreading his thighs, arching his back so rivulets of sea course down the cut of his obliques. He likes to push you like this, preen for you, show off for you. 

“How I get to kiss you when we get back to that hotel room,” you admit, chewing your lip thoughtfully, the already quiet rasp of your voice drowned to her nothingness by endless din of the ocean. 

“Or, you could kiss me now,” he reminds you, sitting up, eyes careful and warm as they hold yours before sweeping back out to the horizon. “No one out here today, just a couple of surfers. It’s too cold. No one would notice, and no one knows who I am.” 

_No one knows who I am._ He says that a lot, like strangers recognizing he’s a famous NASCAR driver is the only reason to not kiss in public. Alongside all the vestiges from his vanity, you’re charmed by it at the same time it makes you ache for the years that separate you, that force you to speak in different languages. 

“Is that so?” you grumble, gaze sweeping the beach. He’s right, it’s empty. _So_ empty, nothing but little black dots bobbing out in the surf, bored life guards gazing out upon them. You turn to him, and he licks his lips. You bet they taste like salt, and something fractures inside you, a wild, reckless bubble rising in your chest as you reach for him, cuff the sea-slick back of his neck to pull him towards you. 

He goes easily, makes a muffled sound of shock into your mouth. He _does_ taste like salt, like sun and summer, and your heart clutches in your chest as he splays his hand over it, like he might contain your fear in his palm. When you pull away you’re shaking. “Happy?” you ask. 

He fist pumps like he’s just won a race, grinning brilliantly, teeth the whitest flash in the whole of this dim grey beach. “Damn,” he says, flopping back onto his towel. “That was better than first place in the rain.”


	21. bed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was also for a tumblr prompt about Doc finding Lightning in his bed. Clothes stealing, bed sharing, pining, flirting, first time.

“What the hell are you doing in my bed?” 

Doc’s voice cuts through the haze of sleep. It takes you a few groggy moments to realize he’s actually _there,_ flesh-and-blood Doc catching you red-handed sprawled out over his comforter, not Dream-Doc talking dirty in your ear. _Shit._

_“_ Uh,” you say, sitting up so fast your vision swims and your head aches. You blink at him, at the way he’s standing there regarding you with his gaze unreadably steely, his jaw set tight. “S’not what it looks like. Uh- I…I fell asleep.” 

“Obviously,” he grinds out, gaze crawling all over you. He’s chewing his lip and you’re reeling with guilt and panic, and you’ve only just realized he’s _staring_ like that because you’re not _just_ in his bed, you’re also wearing his fleece-lined flannel, which you put on earlier because it smelled like him. You thought you had time for a quick nap before he came home, buy clearly not. Now, you look like a fucking creep. Probably because you are, chasing the ghost-heat of his body, the smell of his deodorant and hair gel. “What does this mean?” he asks then after a sigh, and he sounds _tired_ more than he sounds angry, which is a good thing.

You dare to look up at him, and as soon as your eyes lock whatever excuse you were concocting out of your post-nap grog evaporates on the spot. 

Doc is looking at you like he’s seeing you for the first fucking time. There’s a softness to his expression, a twinkling curiosity that makes him look ten years younger, like a man instead of a _old_ man, a _boy,_ even, and it takes your breath away, makes your stomach drop. “Ok,” you say, trying to keep your voice even though your heart is pounding so hard it feels like it could dislodge the words right out of you. “Maybe it is what it looks like.” 

Doc maintains eye-contact as he slowly deliberately shucks his jacket, pulling it off and hanging it up like every move is deliberate, ritual. Your heart speeds even faster, mouth suddenly dry. His eyes are so fucking blue, and he’s regarding you how he does in your fantasies, like he wants to take you apart, like he wants to flay you to the bone. He’s wavering though, flickering there in his tee-shirt like you might do something that changes his mind convince him there’s some _other_ plausible reason you’re wearing his shirt and sleeping in his bed, desperately fitting your body into the impression of him. “My shirt’s too big for you,” he says, stepping closer to the foot of the bed. 

You spread your legs, lay back down and prop yourself up with your elbows, every inch of you vibrating, just short of an honest to god tremble. “Yeah,” you tell him, eyes skirting up and down his body. His straight shoulders, the silver hair peeking out from the V neck of his shirt, the skin wrinkled and soft at his throat, where you’ve imagined kissing so many fucking times, where you longingly bury your face after he hugs you after a win. “Don’t care, though. S’yours. Wanted— just, to feel what you feel, on your skin. Next best thing to feeling you,” you admit in a rush, and that’s when you truly start to shake. 

He curses, them climbs onto the bed, brackets you between his knees, chest pressed to yours so sudden you lose your breath. “I thought I was going fucking crazy,” he growls, pinning your arms above your head and pressing his face right into your thundering pulse, the same place on _him_ you’ve gotten away with smelling, breathing from. His mustache scrapes delicate skin and you shudder, mouth flooding. “Noticing you _looking_ at me, holding onto me too lon, fucking touching me ll the goddamned time.. I thought—I want it so goddamned bad, m’inventing it, seeing what I want to see. Then I find you wearing my shirt in my bed.” 

“You’re not crazy,” you gasp out, suddenly so breathless, shivering as you reach for him. Touch his back with reverent fingers, his sides heaving with labored breath, his thinning hair. “M’just chickenshit, I was too scared to tell you, to do something about it.” 

“Well,” he says gruffly, mouthing up your jaw before he catches your mouth in a sudden, searing kiss. He tastes like salt and spice and you _knew_ he would because you smell his breath every time you get close enough to drink it in, which is all the time, every fucking chance you can get. He kisses you rough and tender and even you lick into his mouth he groans, licks right back. When he breaks away and you’re already keening, writhing around in his sheets, too-hot and newly sweating in his flannel. “Good thing _I’m_ gonna do something about it.” 


	22. huds boy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> takes place during cars 3 but if doc were alive.

Lightning was half anticipating having to explain to Smokey who he _was,_ if he found him. Show him some press pictures from his better seasons, back when he was young and handsome and the gold of his hair wasn’t thinning or run through with grey. He didn’t think Smokey recognize him as three time Piston Cup winner Lightning McQueen right off the bat. So it’s a fucking _shock,_ really, when he takes one look at him, and even with his beer belly and crows feet, calls him _Hud’s boy._

It courses through his body like en electric shock. Painful at first, like exposing a raw nerve, ripping a band aid off of a fresh wound because he’s not _used_ to people just _knowing._ Then it occurs to him Smokey might not _know_ know. He might just be referring to the fact Doc is his _mentor,_ not that he lives with him, not that they’ve been basically married for the last ten years. 

Regardless, it’s exciting and scary and nice all at once. 

A heady, belated warmth settles over him. To whatever extent Smokey knows, acknowledgment is weirdly and powerfully validating. Lightning _is_ Hud’s boy, in every possible way, and having that just _voiced_ with ease and conviction feels so fucking _good._ Especially coming from Smokey, someone who knows Doc, _knew him_ back even before he was Doc. 

Later, at the bar, Cruz leans in and dramatically whispers to him, “Are you offended he referred to you as your crew chief’s like, pet project slash possession slash protege instead of your actual name? How’s that old man ego doing?” she grins, slapping his back. 

He shakes his head, knowing that if he keeps hanging out with this girl, he’s gonna have to _tell_ her what he and Doc actually are to eachother. It will change everything, allying with her in that way, letting her know they have something in common beyond their love of racing. “M’not offended at all,” he says, shrugging. 


	23. sleeping

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sleep sex/somnophelia warning!!!

They’ve talked about it. 

Some waning night, dawn filtering in through the cracks between the blackout curtains, Doc thinking _I shouldn’t be up this late_ at the same time he couldn’t possibly sleep, hands still rough-sweet and roving all over Lightning’s body blindly in the dark as they share secrets, confessions. _I used to hope you’d come into the guest room when I crashed here_ Lightning admits, voice soft and breath hot against Doc’s throat as he whispers. _That you’d just. God, I dunno. Touch me while I was sleeping. Or tell me to be quiet and still if I wasn’t, and touch me any way. Take what you wanted from me—fuck, Is that sick?_

Doc is not an expert in what is sick or not. All he knows is that he loves Lightning McQueen, loves him hard and absolutely, in such a way everything with him feels pure and good and absolving, no matter how it would look on paper or in porn . _It’s not sick,_ Doc tells him, gripping his thigh so hard breath hisses out from between his teeth for Doc to swallow. _Do you want—some day I let you sleep in, you want me to come in and touch you? Pretend m’taking what I want—what I wanted then?_

Lightning gasps, presses his thickening cock into Doc’s hip and says _fuck yeah. I’d love that. I’d come so hard imagining—pretending that you didn’t ask me first, that you didn’t know for sure that I wanted it, too. Thinking that_ you _just wanted it so bad you couldn’t help yourself._

Doc kisses him through shuddering, through gasps. _You’d like that?_ he asks. _Me touching my boy whole he was asleep? Not asking for permission?_

 _Fuck, yes,_ he moans, mouth getting wet how it always does when he’s overwhelmed. _So much._

So then, next time Lightning is napping on the couch, Doc tries to remember he has permission to _touch._ That Lightning wants him to, that he _asked_ for it, so hard putting words to his desires made him hard. 

He wills his hands to stop shaking, lowering himself carefully to aching knees so he has better access. Then, in spite of the way thickness in his throat, he just does it. Brushes his palms sweet and hungry up the steady rise and fall of Lightning’s sleeping ribcage, sneaks fingers under the waistband of his sweats to brush against course hair. Lighting stirs and Doc freezes, even though he knows he’s been _asked_ to do this. That he’s not just allowed, but _encouraged_ to explore. To take. 

Lightning’s cock is no less over-eager when he’s asleep. It twitches and thickens and when Doc moves his hand lower to take hold of it. He jacks him off a little, palms him to full thickness, until he’s liking from the crown, pumping subconsciously with his hips. Doc needs to _see_ so he risks pulling him trough the fly in his sweats, and that’s when those pretty blonde lashes flutter open. “What?” he murmurs, looking down between his thighs in a haze, “Are you—?”

Doc doesn’t wait for an answer. He presses his free hand over Lightning’s parted lips, holds him down and looks him dead in the eye and says, “ _Sh_. Don’t move, just lie here, baby. Let me make you feel good.” 

Lightning blinks for a moment, then he seems to put everything together and moans into Doc’s palm, spreads his thighs and rolls onto his back, hips canting towards Doc hungrily for a moment before he stops himself, guards his body language. Lies there shivering with restraint, looking up with false-terror in his wide eyes. 

Doc is surprised by how exciting it is, to have Lightning pretend to be afraid. To pretend to be innocent. He thinks of all the times he’s fucked him so hard no words come out of those swollen lips except _please_ and _daddy,_ and wonders if he’s _helping_ him, by indulging that shit. By meeting him eagerly and half-way, to hold his trauma and his history and his messy, lonely childhood in age-weathered hands and say _I got you. I love you wholly. The ugly, shameful parts too._

 _“_ That’s it,” he praises as Lightning’s cock twitches in his palm, so hard, so wanting. “You just lie there quiet and still. I got you.” 

Lightning closes his eyes, and melts into the couch cushion like he’s come home. 


	24. pussy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> gender play, feminization, daddy kink

It’s not like he wants to be a girl. 

He doesn’t, like not at all. Ninety nine percent of the time he doesn’t even _think_ about it, about messy shit like identity or gender or whatever. It’s not important to him, not usually. He is how he is and he doesn’t worry too much about it.

Unless he’s bent in half and Doc’s got his hands all over him and he’s in that nasty, fucked-out brain-space he gets to sometimes, when he’s flayed to a raw nerve, begging for _something_ to push him over the edge. 

He wouldn’t have thought of it on his own, even, except one time Doc’s licked him out for so long that when he pulls back he murmurs, “You’re soaked, baby. Just dripping for me.” 

“Like a girl?” Lightning breathes, stomach in knots, toes curling against the sheets as Doc kisses over the jut of his hip bone. 

“How would I know?” Doc scoffs, and somehow, _somehow,_ that makes it even fucking _hotter._ That Doc has never even touched a real girl like this, only Lightning. That this is somehow the pinnacle of wetness, the wettest thing he’s ever felt. 

“Oh god,” Lightning keens, arching his back, ass clenching hungrily. “Do you wanna fuck me? Where I’m wet?” 

“Yeah,” Doc mumbles, shifting over him, weight pressing into his chest, making it hard to breathe as he gets his cock out of his sweats. “Wanna hollow you out. Fill you up.” 

“Fill up my pussy,” Lightning says, without even _thinking_ about it. 

Doc reels back, stares at him with crisp blue eyes, sparkling with mirth. “Did you just say _pussy?”_ he asks curiously. He’s surprised, amused, but not repulsed. Lightning can tell by the way he’s still palming his own shaft with one hand, the other touching him, fingers nudging up against his hole where he’s slick, twitching. His _pussy._ God, fuck, it’s so wrong, so irreverent, so _slutty._ It makes his stomach plummet. 

“Yeah,” he admits breathlessly. “Does it freak you out?” 

“No,” Doc murmurs, shaking his head as he thumbs over the furl of his hole. “It’s not–you’re still my boy. Doesn’t change anything. Just can hardly believe you’re s goddamned filthy all the time, Christ. Where did you come from?” 

“Please, Daddy,” Lightning whines, letting the other word that never fails to scandalize and move Doc slipping from his lips easy and hot. “Fuck my pussy.” 

“Jesus,” Doc says, shaking his head, kneeling over him and aligning himself, the blunt head just beginning to breach so sweet and searing Lightning gasps. “What’re you gonna tell the paramedics when you give me a heart attack in bed and have to call 911?” 

But Lightning can’t answer, because he’s getting cored in half, ruined, split. And it’s not like he wants to be a girl, not really. It’s just that he’s bent in half and Doc’s got his hands all over him and he’s in that nasty, fucked-out brain-space he gets to sometimes, when he’s flayed to a raw nerve, begging for _something_ to push him over the edge. 


	25. choking

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> doc training lightning how to deep throat. ummm daddy kink I think?

His hair is damp from the shower, corn-silk soft in your fingers as you guide him down. He’s too eager, goes too fast, just like he does every other fucking thing in the world so he gags, coughs. You gently tug him off, even though he’s whining about it. “Just slow down, baby,” you murmur, thumbing over the swollen pout of his lower lip. “Always trying to make everything a race.” 

“No- I’m not…it’s not that I’m rushing,” he explains, rubbing his cheek against the shaft of your cock, eyes so full or pupil there’s hardly any blue left to them. Your own eyes are blue, too, a cold ice blue like Hollywood swimming pools. But his are like a storm. Dark and troubled and lovely, the sort of thing you’ll spend the rest of your life learning to sail the vast tide of. “I’m just. I want to make you feel good. I want to be _good_ at it already,” he eventually says, making a face. 

“You have to _learn_ , that’s the whole point. Train yourself out of your gag reflex. S’not gonna happen in a day,” you remind him, charmed he somehow _doesn’t_ think of this as rushing. He hates being anything less than perfect at a task, especially where you’re concerned. He loves to make you happy, without realizing that hunger, in and of _itself,_ makes you happy. You’re not sure how you managed to get so fucking lucky. “Go ahead,” you murmur, smoothing your trembling fingers through his hair. “Try again.” 

He shifts his weight on his knees, takes a starting stance like he does in the pits and starts slow and sweet this time, eyes locked on you like he’s making a point. He kisses, licks, moves the soft, slick, red smear of his mouth up and down the underside of your cock with his eyes closed. You get lost in the filthy-sweet spectacle of it for a moment, heart broken over the way his blonde lashes flutter against the hollow of his cheek as he sucks the crown of your cock. “Oh, you’re teasing now?” You grumble, thumbing at the corners of his stretched tight mouth. “You’re gonna kill me like this, kid. Have no idea how pretty you look with your throat full of cock.” 

He pulls off messily, drool on his chin. “I know _exactly_ how pretty you think I am,” he assures you, grinning. It’s a wide grin, a dirty, gorgeous thing. You want to paint it in come. “M’getting you close so I don’t have to work as hard. 

“You’re cheating,” you accuse fondly. “Cutting corners.” 

“M’not,” he says, eyes thinking before he swallows you down. He sinks centimeter by centimeter, pausing to adjust every time you tighten your grip in his hair. Then he moans around you, and the vibration makes you gasp, your quads flicker under his splayed palm. It’s then that you feel the head of your cock hit the back of his throat, the flicker of it wet and hot and unbearably good.

“God, baby,” you murmur, thumbing up the tears leaking from the corners of his eye as holds his place, lids flickering. “That’s so nice. Such a good boy for your daddy.” 

You feel him smile, before he coughs and pulls back off. “Better?” he rasps, studying your poker face the way he does after a practice lap at the track in a new model. The same commitment, the same dedication, the same adoration. Your heart clenches, because this boy is _yours,_ somehow, yours to choke and come inside and patch back together with kisses. 

“Perfect,” you tell him. “Fucking perfect.” 


	26. blood

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> established cute stuff!! blood tw but other than that very tame.

It’s nothing big. They’re in the kitchen unpacking groceries when Lightning gets a paper cut on the bag, wincing as he reels way. “Ouch,” he says, staring down at the tiny slit in his skin, where a bead of blood is rising to the surface. “Fuck. Why does that hurt so bad.” 

“C’mere,” Doc says gently, dropping everything to turn to Lightning, take his hand very gently in that sweet, firm, confidence-inspiring doctor way. “You cut yourself?”

“Yeah. Just on the grocery bag, it’s no big deal,” he mumbles, stepping closer. Now that he gets to kiss Doc, it’s hard to do anything else. He sways towards him, lets his gaze get hazy and wide-spread as it sticks on all of the creases in Doc’s face, the flat line of his mouth as he thoughtfully examines him. 

Lightning expects him to get a bandaid, maybe. Clean it with a little stingy alcohol pad, tend to him the way he does sometimes when he’s injured, even if it’s minor. He loves it when Doc takes care of him like that, loves that Doc is an honest to god medical professional, that he can feel safe settling into his fussing. 

Instead, Doc shakes his head, bends Lightning’s fingers towards his palm save for the index, and gently fixes his mouth to the cut. 

It burns, but then it’s just _hot._ The wet flick of his tongue lapping up the pinprick of blood, the way his eyes flicker under the age-crinkled lids. It’s such a shocking and out of character and fucking _unsanitary_ thing to do Lightning gasps, tenses, even if he doesn’t want him to stop, even as his stomach is plunging.

Doc’s terrifically blue eyes flash open as he pulls away. He almost looks surprised he did it, too. Lightning clutches his spit-went hand to his chest for a second before he’s throwing his arms around Doc’s neck, fitting himself into the warm, comforting circle of his arms. This man who _loves him,_ this man he loves. This doctor who needs him so bad he’ll lick his wounds, he’ll drink his blood. It’s _insane. “_ You really love me, don’t you?” he asks breathlessly, face hot and unexpectedly tear-wet where he presses it into Doc’s neck. 

Doc palms up his back, laughs in that breathless, disbelieving way often does, like he cannot believe Lightning doesn’t _know_ already. “More than—fuck. More than I ever thought I could love anyone. More than I thought people could love other people, period,” he admits. 

Lightning sniffles, kissing his thundering pulse. “I love you so fucking much, too.” 

They stand there for a moment in the kitchen, Doc’s hands smoothing up and down the muscles framing Lightning’s line tenderly, feeling him out like a sculptor shapes clay. It’s so nice, Lightning sort of wants to fell asleep here. “Are you gonna disinfect me and get me a band-aid now?” he murmurs. 


	27. feeling's mutual

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pining, minor angst, Lightning's stupid and confusing

Doc leaves the couch for another beer and when he comes back, Lightning has claimed the _entire thing._ Just spread out in every direction like a spilled drink. “Where am I supposed to sit?” Doc gripes. 

“Ummmm well. Way i see it, you have two options. You can sit up by my head and I can use your lap as a pillow, or, you can sit on the other side and lemme put my legs over yours. It’s up to you.”

Doc frowns down at him, his tipsy, smiling face, the shape of his body under the fleece blanket he’s curled up in. Doc can’t even be properly indignant he’s so stupid in love. It’s awful. “Why do both options require me _being used_ as furniture? How about you sit the fuck up.” 

He pouts. “I’m comfortable.”

“Fine. I’m gonna go to bed.” 

“No! It’s another hour before I sober up and I don’t want to do it alone,” he yelps, reaching out and grabbing Doc’s pantleg, making a tight, sudden fist in the fabric. “What’s your big issue with being furniture? Like, don’t you get touch starved? Use single guys gotta stick together.” 

Doc rolls his eyes. Lightning has been needier than usual since him and Sally took a break, and as much as he resents getting the overflow, he also loves it. He can’t help that all his heart really wants is Lightning McQueen as close as he can possibly have him. Flint and fire, right here where it can burn. “You’re single in a different way than I am,” Doc announces, deciding the leg-end option is less compromising. He hauls Lightning’s calves up and seats himself under them, pretending his heart isn’t pounding. 

“What do you mean?” Lightning asks, frowning. “How?” 

“You’ll find a girl. Or Sally will come back. I’ll die before—”

“Oh my fucking god _stop._ We’ll find you a boyfriend next time we’re racing in San Francisco, can’t be that hard. In the meantime, just fucking cuddle me, ok? I’m not gonna no homo you,” Lightning grumbles, rolling over. nearly kicking Doc in the process. “I hate how weird you are about this stuff.” 

“Hey. The feeling’s mutual, kid,” Doc announces, flicking him hard on the back of the knee. 


	28. you'll shoot your eye out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> kink negotiation, discussion of bondage, BDSM dynamics, DOC'S ROBE

“Have you ever thought of like…handcuffing me to the bed?” Lightning asks out of the fucking blue some morning during bacon and eggs. Doc nearly chokes on his coffee but he catches himself, sputtering minimally instead. He can tell by the way Lightning asked that he is _not_ actually wondering if it’s something Doc has ever considered, as much as _he’s_ considered it extensively enough to actively want it, and now it’s trying to subconsciously plant the idea in Doc’s head to convince him he came up with it himself, like the kid from _A Christmas Story_ who wants a bb gun. 

“You’ll shoot your eye out,” Doc says wryly. 

“What?!” 

“I hadn’t thought about it, no. But it sounds like you have,” Doc explains, pursing his lips and smirking at Lightning, who is sitting at the breakfast table doing the _worst_ job of playing innocent. He’s a terrible actor and it makes Doc want to haul him off to bed and bend him in half. “You have a thing about handcuffs, kid?” 

Lightning sighs, deflating in defeat. “Not _handcuffs,_ specifically,” he admits. “But, while we’re on the subject, I wouldn’t mind being like. Restrained, somehow.” 

He’s blushing so fucking hard it makes Doc’s mouth water. 

“By your arms? Or your whole body? Paint me a picture,” Doc says easily, leaning against the kitchen counter and sipping his coffee. Sunlight streams into the room; birds sing outside. Lightning is sitting there in his boxers writhing around, and the whole scene is just so fucking perfect Doc wondered for the hundredth time if he’s dreamt this life with his boy up. “C’mon. You’ve clearly dedicated some time to thinking about it.’ 

“Well,” Lightning admits, chewing his lip, staring at the scuffed linoleum. “I usually think about like. My arms above my head while you touch me. I wouldn’t mind it being my whole body, though.” 

“Hm, your arms above your head. Easy enough, I could string you up to the headboard with one of my work ties. Or the sash of my robe.” 

“Jesus fucking _christ,_ Doc,” Lightning grinds out, rubbing his face against his arms, looking up with pleading blue eyes. “You know you’re gonna have to do it right now, huh? You created a monster.” 

“You’ll shoot your eye out,” Doc says fondly in response, shaking his head, untying his robe with slow, deliberate fingers. 


	29. spun gold

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pining, minor angst, then cute shit and arm pit/body hair kink, body worship

His loose, messy curls and the stubble on the cut of his jaw are golden-rod, like a field of wheat, like sunshine hitting dead grass. It reminds Doc of summers in North Carolina. He feels memories open up in his chest when he looks at Lightning sometimes, like the color of him pries the the top off of a rusted can it’s so brilliant. 

Before he’s granted the privilege of finding out for himself, Doc wonders if the hair on the _rest_ of his body is as soft looking, as blonde. He’s fucked plenty of blonde boys who have darker pubic hair, coarse and mahogany between their legs, under their arms. He wonders if Lightning is like them, or something new. 

He tries not to notice whenever Lightning’s shirtless and got his hands over his head, but it’s hard not to. He’s not shy about his body, he flaunts it and preens under the ensuing attention. He knows he’s pretty, and he doesn’t seem to _mind_ Doc staring. So, he does. Zeroes in on the trail beneath his naval, the thatch in his pits. 

It _is_ darker, but it’s not quite brown. There’s a reddish hue to it, like something singed from having sat too close to a space heater. and it makes Doc’s mouth water to look at. He wants to lick it, reduce Lightning to a mess of muscles. He wants to keep him on the edge between pain and squirming away from tickled. He wants to make Lightning McQueen have some sort of _revelation._

When the world ends and things between them miraculously change, Doc is too blown away by the whole thing to take exactly what he wants, just yet. He touches Lightning carefully, hesitantly. Not because he’s unsure, but because he think’s Lightning is. He doesn’t trust him yet; everything feels breakable. He’s not just gonna pin him by his tricep, straddle his chest, and paint that strawberry blonde patch in his pit in white, no matter how bad he wants to. 

It’s not until Lightning gets good at sucking dick, and _prides_ himself on that new skill, and goes as far as to _brag_ about it, that Doc decides he’s serious about this. He moves from petting his hair to pulling it, thumbing briefly and reverently under his arms to pressing hungry, open mouthed kisses there, sucking the sweat out, getting hard from _just that:_ the flavor of boy and musk sharp on his tongue, even hours after it’s happened, reminding him his life ha changed. He’s in love. 

“Why do you like it so much?” Lightning marvels one afternoon, the sunlight streaming in through the open window and making him shine like a new penny. Doc groans, rubs his face into his underarm, breathes him in, He loves the red-gold catching on the silver of his mustache, so many precious metals, metallic under his tongue. 

“I—I don’t know,” he admits, licking into it, making Lightning squirm, gasp. “It just. It brings back memories. Makes me think of summer, and sun. Sounds stupid when I say it aloud.” 

Lightning palms his own cock, because everything that turns Doc on turns him on, too, by proxy. “What, did you get to lick a lot of guys pits over the years for something? Is it some weird fetish?” 

“No,” Doc says, scoffing. “You don’t get to touch that sort of intimacy in a bar bathroom. I’ve only done this to you.” 

There’s a smile on Lightning’s lips, twisting that pink perfect mouth up at one corner. Doc wants to kiss it, and that’s when it hits him: he wants these things, these private places dusted in hair, because they’re _not_ the sort of places you stumble upon on a man when you’re terrified and in the dark. You don’t get to linger, you don’t get to drown. Hair is something you feel in your mouth, against your cheek, under the scrape of your palm, but only in fleeting moments. You don’t get to _luxuriate_ in it. “Not memories,” he say then, correcting himself, rubbing his hand into Lightning’s underarm where the hair is matted down with spit. “Wishes.” 


	30. no mistletoe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> first time, angst, drinking tw, drunk stupid lightning

It happens at Flo and Ramone’s annual Christmas party. 

Everyone is drunk on egg nog, _so_ drunk the bowl is empty and Flo’s brought out the straight brandy. Lightning is flushed and too-warm, so he strips out of his ugly red and green striped sweater with the tiny gold puff balls sewn onto it, and now he’s sitting on the couch with Sarge and Sheriff laughing messily, wearing nothing but a flimsy, white ribbed tank-top. You need a break from the way his arms look, the effortless tone of them, the ease of his smile as he throws his head back with his mouth open and his teeth flashing white, so you stumble into the kitchen under the guide of cleaning up. 

One shot of brandy and half a sink full of dishes later, you’re interrupted. He comes and finds you, pouting. “You disappeared, miss you,” he slurs, using the counter to keep himself upright. “Where’d you go?” 

“Someone’s gotta clean up. Rest of you are too wasted,” you say fondly, rinsing the soap from your hands before drying them on a hand towel. The rack is full so you need to wait a bit before diving back in, so you’re about to escape him, sidle back into the living room where there are fewer temptations and wide expanses of pink freckles skin when he steps in front of you, backs you against the wall. 

“You know what?” he asks, breath booze-fiery and sugar cookie-sweet. You stare at his mouth, too dizzy too stop yourself the way you normally would. It’s fine, not like he _notices_ the way you stare. Otherwise he’d know you were in love with him, and he’d quit doing shit like drunkenly swaying one inch from your mouth while you’re trapped. 

“What?” you say quietly. 

“Theres no mistletoe at this party. Which is stupid,” he mumbles, eyes half lidded, vision clouded a he gazes up at you with a confusing sort of heat. “Makes it hard to do stuff like this.” 

And then, he rolls onto the balls of his feet and presses that plush red mouth right to yours. 

You’re shocked, but of course you kiss him back. You can’t fucking help it, he tastes like liquor and honey and spice and this is the thing you’ve wanted most since you first saw him, and every day since then. You make a fist in his sweat-damp shirt, spin him around, press him up against the counter and suck his tongue as he pushes it sloppily, sweetly into your mouth. He groans a pitiful grown at the same time unrelated laughter erupts from the living room, and it’s in that moment you come to you goddamned senses. 

“Wait, wait, fuck,” you mumble, pushing off, gasping as you stare down at him, his unfocused eyes, his flushed cheeks. 

“No,” he says, tugging at your sweater. “Come back.” 

“Kid,” you plead, even though all you want is to pitch back into the sweet-hot darkness of his panting mouth. “You’re drunk.” 

“M’not,” he mumbles, slumping against you, head pressed into your shoulder. “There’s no mistletoe.” 

“Jesus christ,” you sigh, carding your fingers up through the mess of his hair, rucking it up in back. You try to ignore the way your lips are stinging with longing. “Let’s get you home into bed. We can talk about this in the morning.” 

“Doc?” he mumbles then, rubbing his face against you curiously. “What’re you doing here?” 

Your hand twitches on his back, and you wonder who he thought you were when he pressed his mouth to yours, when he licked into it like he’d been thinking of it as long as you had. “I dunno,” you murmur, pain shooting hard and sudden through your chest at the realization. “Dunno, kid.” 


	31. winter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> suuuuuper domestic. just talking. sappy established relationship.

It’s the first night in months it’s been cold enough to actually throw the Pendleton over their legs while they sit on the couch after dinner to wind down. Lightning swallows two ibuprofen with a swig of hot toddy, grimacing as he gathers his legs up under the blanket, snuggling closer to Doc, so his knees press into the plane of his thighs. He’s always achey after the gym, but the last few months everything hurts worse, his soreness lingering, concentrating in his joints, around his spine as the weather cools down and he turns another year older. It doesn’t bother him much, not really. Aging used to scare him, until Doc. Now it seems stupid to worry about his own years ticking away when he can worry about Doc’s instead. 

He frowns, scooting even closer, deciding they’re not touching enough. 

Doc puts his book down in his lap and shoots Lightning a pointed look over the rim of his glasses before reaching under the blanket to hook his hand into the ditch of his knee, pulling him in. “What, you want to crawl into my lap or something?” 

“It’s finally cold out,” Lightning mumbles in defense, pressing his face into Doc’s shoulder, breathing him in. Then, after a moment, “I thought I was being subtle.” 

“You’re never subtle,” Doc tells him. 

Lightning can feel him smile, can imagine what it looks like, those soft, thin lips pursing under the sharp silver line of his mustache. His chest aches at the image, so he looks up, cranes his neck to see it in real time. “You know, I totally used to do this way before we were together. Try and touch you with my knees under the blanket.” 

“Oh, I know,” Doc scoffs. “Exactly my point. Subtlety is not your strong suit, boy. Always right up against me. Drafting,” he jokes. 

“Like two junebugs on a hot summer night,” Lightning says, throwing one of Doc’s favorite racing truisms back at him with a gri. “You’d always move away from me, though. I thought I was annoying you.” 

Doc shakes his head, sucks his teeth. There’s a sharp twinkle to the blue of his eyes, and that always makes Lightning feel a little better. How even as Doc ages, gets stiffer and grayer and thinner and less mobile, his eyes are always the sharpest, hottest blue, electric and full of life. “I wasn’t annoyed,” he grumbles.

“You were hot and bothered?” Lightning asks, squirming closer, rubbing his face into Doc’s neck, mouth open on the loose, crinkled skin of his pulse for a moment, teasing. 

“I didn’t know what you were doing,” Doc says, squeezing Lightning’s knee under the blanket. “Or I thought _you_ didn’t know what you were doing.” 

“I didn’t really, not initially. Like it didn’t register in my brain as flirting or anything I was just like, ‘I want to touch him,’ so I did,” Lightning remembers. He presses a kiss to Doc’s throat, lets his head settle onto his shoulder. “I just always wanted to be as close as possible to you.” 

“Well it nearly gave me a heart attack,” Doc announces, decidedly leaning forward, dislodging Lightning as he sets his book down on the coffee table. “C’mere,” he demands then, gesturing for Lightning to come closer, fit himself into his arms, straddle his lap. Lightning does, and the blanket falls away from them, slithers to the floor and pools around Doc’s slippers heavily. “Get to touch you whenever I want now, huh?” he murmurs under his breath, voice a low gravely scrape that makes Lightning shiver. 

He rubs his face into Doc’s, needing to feel the muted scrape of his stubble as he sits on him, something to smooth away the way his own thighs are strained, his knees aching, the way he wishes he could stop time but knows it’s impossible. “Mhm. Could have touched me then, too. I wanted it. Even before I knew I wanted it.” 

Doc’s hands rove all over his shoulder, his sides, down to cup and squeeze his ass, heft him closer. They’ve recently gotten a tremor to them, but they’re steady whenever they touch Lightning, like it’s the thing he’s most certain of. He shakes his head, eyes flickering with awe, warm and crystalline. “Wish I had known that. Wish I hadn’t wasted a single second not touching you.” Then, quieter as he cups Lightning’s face between gentle palms, “God, you used to break my heart.” 

That tightens in Lightning’s chest, a tiny pang of regret for how long he spent not knowing himself, hiding from the things he felt even as they took the wheel and drove, made him do things like touch a man under the heat of a blanket. He’d been so stupid, and insecure, and _god,_ what a waste of precious time. “M’here now,” he promises, pressing kiss after kiss to Doc’s jaw. “Your heart’s better now, right?” 

Doc smiles, and Lightning covers the wry twist of it with his lips. “Yeah,” Doc mumbles into his mouth. “Fixed it up good, baby.” 


	32. somebody to love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pining! angst! H/C!

There’s not even a fucking crash. 

It happens _after_ the race, a freak accident, something malfunctioning with the E-break as he stands too close to the 95. She rolls right over his foot, and just like that it’s broken. Swollen and purple when they cut him out of his shoe, his face a wan green as he winces while the medics prod at the impact site. They give him some pain killers after the X Ray, tell him to stay off of it, that he’s lucky it’s only a hairline fracture and he’s laughing about it by that time, even if you’re not. 

Thinking of that puffy bruised skin makes your stomach ache, your eyes sting like it’s _your_ bones that are broken. You hate that it was just some on-track medics who fixed him up, and not you. There’s no way in hell they’d be as careful with him, as tender. No one in the world would touch him as gentle as you. 

There’s a steady wave of unrelenting dread crashing over you, and later, at the bar when he should be celebrating his win but instead is just drunkenly complaining about how obnoxious it will be training in a boot and crutches, you watch him carelessly bang it against a stool and feel your heart nearly shoot up into your throat and choke you. You _hate_ that he’s hurt, manhandle the beer out of his hand and steer him right out to a cab, even though Fillmore and Luigi and even _Sarge_ are telling you to relax, let him have a good time, that it’s not a big real.

The thing is, you _know_ you’re overreacting. That as far as racing injuries go this is minor, it probably won’t even affect this career or his training before the next Grand Prix. It’s superficial, it’ll heal. He didn’t even _crash._

But still, you can’t handle his little grimaces of pain, his breathless gasps when he forgets he’s busted and puts weight on it. Every time you end up touching him somehow, scolding him for trying to walk without crutches or carry his duffles when they throw him off balance, hands on his back, his arm, the base of his neck where the top most knob of his spine juts out. Everything that hurts him hurts you right back, keeps you up at night worrying, wondering if he’s icing it like he’s supposed to, if he’s elevating it, if he’s doing the stretches you told him about to loosen up his other leg, which is tight and sore from the strain bearing all his weight. 

“Look, I know you are a doctor,” Lightning sighs one day at the gym, irritated at the new, lower impact weight circuit you came up with for him. “But this is ridiculous. I’m taking it easy, I can’t slack _too_ much though, or it will be that much harder to build up my strength again! You’re the one who’s always talking about cross training and making sure muscles don’t atrophy. Let me _at least_ keep the reps on my arms up.” 

“Crutches can be hard on the deltoids, walking with them is a workout in and of itself! Can’t have you being a hero and burning out, or worse, fucking up something else,” you snap, even though you know he’s right. You’re being overly cautious, holding back. Guido and Fillmore have both come to you separately to ask if everything is ok, if you’re having flashbacks to your own injury from your own racing days, if _that’s why_ you’re acting so weird. You can’t tell them, of course, that it’s just Lightning McQueen making you crazy again, undoing you. It’s not that you’re worried about his workouts, it’s that you’re worried about _him._ You want to take care of him, and you can’t, because it’s unreasonable. The rage of your worry is excessive and it’s born from being in love with him, not from logic. 

“I just don’t want to get out of shape! I know you’re freaked out this is gonna hurt my career, but it’s not gonna help to lose all my fucking muscle tone in recovery,” he explains, carding a hand through sweaty blonde hair, jaw set tight. “I’m not being reckless or stupid, I’m working _around_ my injuries.” 

“Are you?” you snap, knowing full well that is he is. 

“Listen, Doc. I don’t _need_ to be protected. Just supported.” 

And it fucking stings, seeing those flashing blue eyes, a fierce reminder that he doesn’t actually need you the way you need him. _“_ Fine,” you grind out, standing up, leaving him there at the weight machine set a good twenty pounds lighter than is reasonable. “You can ignore my professional opinion.” Then you storm off to the locker room to splash your face in cold water, come down from the high of being _seen through._ Every ugly way you want him, showing up like blood vessels under the skin for him to slide a needle into. 

When he hobbles in a few minutes later on his crutches with in with headphones around his neck and his shirt nearly translucent with sweat, he ignores you. And you can’t handle that, either, so you tell him, “Lightning. I’m sorry.” 

He shakes his head, frowns. “Hey, me too. I know you just want to help, that it’s your job as crew chief…that I have a history of ignoring injuries and having it bite me in the ass later. So I get it.” 

“I’m also— might be harder on other patients in the same position, your instincts aren’t _wrong,”_ you admit, voice stark and echoey in the empty tiled room. And then, because the moment seems fragile and sometimes the best way to meet fragility is with more: “M’soft when it comes to you, kid.” 

He looks up, cheeks pink, expression surprised. “I thought you were like, ten times harder on me than anyone else because I’m a brat who needs to me put in line,” he says with a smile, spitting your own words back at you. “You telling me it’s all an act?” 

“Yeah,” you huff, shrugging it off like a joke as you walk over and ruffle his hair, like your heart isn’t breaking, like every piece of it doesn’t belong to him. “Don’t tell anyone, though. Gotta maintain the illusion of a gruff exterior so everyone stays afraid of me.” 

He sits down on a bench gingerly, sets his crutches aside and looks up at you. “Secret’s safe with me, old man.” And then, as he shifts his gaze somewhere indistinct to the left of your body, cheeks coloring a shade deeper, he adds, “It’s nice, actually. To have someone care enough to worry.” 

And you want to touch him again, his shoulder or the damp mop of his hair, or the whole of him, pulled close, pressed into your chest like something impossible. But instead your hands flex longingly at your sides, because he doesn’t need you the way you need him. “Well,” you say. “Glad it’s not _all_ terrible.” 


	33. jealous lover

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lightning gets jealous watching doc dance with old ladies lol! there's dirty talk, discussion of industry closeting, and drinking.

Doc is positively _swarming_ with middle aged midwestern divorcees, and Lightning feels some sort of way about it. 

He knows it’s a a ridiculous thing to be jealous of, so he grabs another complimentary champagne flute from platter as the waiter weaves past him, thinking he’ll stop caring if he gets tipsy. Unfortunately it doesn’t help, so he snags another two the next time he comes around, and now he’s just jealous _and_ a little drunk. 

He’s talking to Rusty, or he’s supposed to be, but he can’t focus. He keeps turning around and shooting dizzy glances over his shoulder, where Doc is gesturing as he talks about racing, and the small crowd of women around him throw their heads back and _laugh_ and play with their pearls and lay their _hands_ on his shoulder or elbows and otherwise _shamelessly flirt with him,_ right there, in front of everyone. In front of _Lightning._

 _“_ What are you so—oh,” Rusty says, craning his head around until he gets an eyeful of the spectacle. “Is the great Lightning McQueen jealous he’s not the center of attention for once? Haha! I can find you a nice girl for the night if you want, my friend’s buddy’s brother’s sister is bartending upstairs and she’s a real catch. Real big fan of yours too.” 

“Ha ha!” Lightning forces out unconvincingly through his teeth, eyes still fixed on the way Doc’s smiling right now, humoring and long suffering but still real, as he takes one lady’s hand and leads her to the dance floor while the others titter and pout and make him promise he’ll come back for them. “That’s fine. M’sort of seeing someone these days anyway, I—yeah. My party days are over, I guess.” 

Rusty slaps his shoulder. “Ah, well. You can watch the old man get his kicks, then. Live vicariously through the lucky single bastards. It’s what I do!” 

Then he’s gone, and Lightning’s chasing down a waiter for another champagne. 

There are so _many_ layers of illogic to the weird, tight feeling in his chest. Like, first off, _of course_ Doc is popular with the sort of older women who end up at NASCARsponsor banquets. He’s fucking hot and, as far as they’re concerned, very single. They have _no idea_ he’s gay, or that Lightning moved in three months ago, or that they spend every night together and it’s been life changing and a revelation and all that. So they have no idea how weird it is for Lightning to see manicured, ring-heavy _hands_ all over the shoulders he digs his own nails into at night. It’s so stupid for him to feel offended or scandalized by it, but he does all the same. Doc is _his_ and no one knows (except Guido and only because he’s a spectacular snoop and walked in on them in the locker room of a hotel gym one time) and it’s such an _exciting,_ aching secret to keep. He knows they have to keep up appearances, that it helps remove heat and scrutiny from both of them if Doc’s seen dancing with women as banquets, but _still._ It feels fucking weird, and he doesn’t like it. 

He drinks more champagne, and awhile later runs into Doc in line at the bar. There’s perspiration on his temples from dancing, right where his thinning hair is whitest and softest and _ugh,_ Lightning wants to reach up and touch, he wants to fold himself into Doc’s arms and admit _I hate watching you flirt with people, even if it’s just rich divorced ladies with lipstick on their teeth and I know you’re gay and love me it’s just for show. I still hate it._ Instead he stares up at Doc, watching his own reflection look bewildered in the sparkling blue of his eyes. “Slow down, kid,” Doc murmurs, gently laying a hand on his hip and steering him out of the line and into an empty hallway on the way to a bathroom. “It’s not even ten yet.” 

“You slow down,” Lightning grumbles, even though he’s grateful for the touch, the acknowledgement. “Isn’t your bad knee hurting? You’ve been dancing for like an hour. Soon all those women are gonna start beating each other off of you with their handbags. You’re gonna cause a scene. Also, you smell like old lady perfume.” 

Doc shakes his head, smiling. “You’re so fucking cute when you’re jealous,” he mumbles under his breath. “Haven’t been able to keep your eyes off me all night. _You’re_ the one making a scene.” 

Lightning feels himself sputter, his mouth drop open with incredulity. He sneaks a few glances around them to make sure they’re alone or at least out of earshot before leaning in and hissing, “I’m that obvious?! ” 

“Boy,” Doc says fondly, crossing his arms over his chest and beaming. “Half those women think _you_ want to dance with them you’re staring so hard. They’re all gossiping, thinking a hot-shot young Rookie and a seasoned old timer are fighting over them. We’re making their goddamned night.” 

Lightning groans. “Promise that wasn’t my plan.” 

“Not mine, either. You know what _is,_ though?” Doc asks, leaning in close, eyes such a bright, crystal blue they’re making Lightning feel breathless. 

“What?” he asks, shivering as Doc leans close for the briefest of seconds. 

“Going back to the hotel, laying you out on the bed, and licking your ass out until you’re wet enough for me to fuck right up into,” Doc murmurs, voice nothing but a low, gravelly rumble before he pulls away, leaving Lightning red-faced and gasping. “You have that to look forward to. So, stop front loading on champagne, kid.” 

Lightning’s stomach is in knots as Doc gently pats his shoulders and wanders back to the bar, but at least it’s not knotted in jealousy. He rubs is mouth with the back of his hand to hide his smile. 


	34. praise

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> some cute identity/sexuality talk.

They’re lying naked, catching their breath. Lightning is always loose-lipped and sappy after he comes, and Doc tries to stay quiet, breathe shallowly and just _listen_ or gently promptso he’ll keep talking. Spilling truth after messy, mortifying truth, precious truth. “You know, I think I might actually just be like. Totally gay,” he says, idly threading his fingers through Doc’s chest hair, so light it tickles. “Instead of whatever I thought I was before.” 

“Oh really?” Doc murmurs, eyes shut. “Why?” 

“I dunno. Just. Sex with you doesn’t compare to any sex I had with girls, ever. I was always so fucking anxious with girls, oh my god. Had to be drunk to even the plunge. Felt like I was doing it wrong, like I wasn’t good enough, ” he explains. Then, after a pause, “It was always just so much _pressure_.” 

“Could you not get it up?” Doc shoots, amused enough he grins into sweat damp hair. Lightning has no issue getting it up, in his experience. He’s a goddamned freak of nature, hard seconds after he comes, always ready to go. The idea of that being something special and exclusive to _their_ sex life makes Doc’s heart clench up like a fist. 

“Sometimes. But mostly—mostly I’d just feel like I had way too much to prove the whole time. If I _did_ get it up I’d freak out about lasting. If she wanted me to go down on her I’d freak out I’d do a bad job. If she didn’t ask for anything in particular I’d freak out about trying to guess what she was into. I’d just— _think_ the whole time, overthink. And with you I just lose my goddamned mind. I don’t think at all. It’s insane.” 

“Doesn’t mean you’re gay,” Doc reminds him, trying to keep the smugness and wonder out of his voice. “Could just be that you’re all mine, and I know how to fuck my baby.” 

He stirs, and Doc can feel him smile against his shoulder. His teeth, the heat of his blush.”Yeah, well, that too. I guess it could be different if it was some other guy. Maybe it’s not that you’re a man, maybe it’s because you—I dunno. Encourage me. Feed my ego. I’m ego-stoke sexual. _God,_ that sounds awful,” he adds, laughing. “I just—I like to know m’doing a good job.” 

Doc curls an arm tight around his waist, holds him close. He loves when Lightning goes on these tangents, tries to operationalize what about their dynamic is so _perfect,_ why it works for him so good. Doc likes to chalk it up to something cosmic, but he knows on some level it’s because Lightning is both profoundly vain and profoundly insecure at the same time: he needs to be praised, coddled, taken care of, told he’s pretty. He needs to be adored. 

Good thing Doc adores him, more so than anyone else in the whole fucking world possibly could. “You always do such a good job, sweetheart,” he mumbles, lips in Lightning’s hair. “My good boy.” 


	35. coming out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lightning comes out to cruz. cw for internalized homophobia, discussions of privilege, and drinking.

They’re at a grimy dive bar after the last practice of the season, and Lightning forgot to eat enough today so he’s a little drunker than he meant to be. The whole place is decorated for Christmas, lights around the windows, tinsel snowflakes hanging from the ceiling low enough the bartender keeps knocking her head and good naturally cursing about it. Lightning keeps squinting and watching the colors bleed together, missing Doc, but feeling good amount the coming months off between seasons, about going _home_ for December. 

Cruz’s statistics were excellent this week, easily comparable to Jackson’s projected times, so he toasts her once, twice, and then they keep drinking. Her cheeks are pink and she’s giving him a hard time when it– _all of it–_ just slips out. 

“Oh, easy for you to say, _Mister McQueen,”_ she slurs, pushing sloppily at his shoulder. “As a white, straight, cis-guy with the whole world served to him on a freaking platter.” 

He doesn’t actually remember what he _said,_ what she’s referring to. The second he hers the word _straight_ his ears ring and he just _forgets._

His privilege comes up a lot in training Cruz; it’s something he’s had to accept and reconcile, that his approach to racing is inevitably different than hers because of the systematic barriers and hurdles she has in her way, when his path to rookie stardom had been relatively unobstructed. Still, something in his body prickles uncomfortably every time she calls him straight, even though she doesn’t know any better because he’s never actually _told_ her.

Usually, he lets it go, knowing full well there will be a time and place to explain his relationship to Doc _._ Being closeted at his job is _weird,_ though. He feels ashamed and invisible, but also sort of guilty, because it’s not like he _lives_ out and proud in the world like she does, unmistakably gay, unmistakably _different._ He skirts by without people poking at him too much, because of the way he looks, the other privileges he has. It seems almost unfair to be like _Hey Cruz, me too,_ when it’s not that simple, for either of them. 

But he’s drunk right now, drunk and dizzy and getting that hot, tense feeling in his skin so before he can think better of it he throws back some of his whiskey sour and says, “well, m’not straight, actually. But I see your point.” It comes out awkward, quiet enough he thinks she might have actually missed it in the din of the bar, but then her eyes widen in shock, before narrowing in conspiratorial elation. She heard. 

“You— _what?_ Oh boy, now I want deets. Did you have an awkward threesome in your twenties? Did you kiss a guy once on a dare? Did—oh _wait,_ do you have a secret crush on Jackson Storm and _that’s_ why you’re so obsessed with him?” she asks gleefully, swiveling back and forth on her barstool. “I should have _known_ you were the tiniest bit bi-curious, there’s _got_ to be a reason I tolerate you.” 

He blinks at her, both stunned and relieved and weirdly enough, a little _hurt_ that he just pretty much _came out to her_ and she jumped _right_ to assuming he’s incidentally bi-curious instead of like. Married to a man. Frowning, he cocks his head. “Cruz,” he mumbles, not quite believing the words he can _feel_ about to tumble from his mouth. “Doc is my boyfriend. He has been for almost ten years.” 

It sits there in the sticky, boozy air between them, and Cruz just stares, her mouth actually, literally hanging open. Lightning can’t look at her, can’t handle trying to read all the nuance of reaction there in the slack shock of her face, so he finishes his drink and stares at the melting ice in his glass instead. 

“ _Doc?”_ she say eventually, voice incredulous. “Like, _Doc_ Doc? Is your boyfriend. Doc Hudson. Your former Crew Chief slash roommate– _oh,”_ she says then, cutting herself off. “Fuck. I did the thing. I did the thing I hate when people do it to me. I gal-palled you.” 

“It’s ok, he’s sort of hard to read, and he’s not like–much for PDA, and I haven’t really…” he trails off before he says _had the luxury of coming out_ because he doesn’t want her to think he thinks her situation is luxurious, when it’s caused her so much grief and homophobia in the industry. “I’m not publicly out, so there was no way for you to know. It’s like–my crew knows, all our friends back in Radiator Springs know and have for years, but I’ve kept that life sorta separate from racing, had a tight crew… and I met you in the racing world, so I just? Didn’t know how to tell you, or something. I was going to, eventually. But it’s a hard thing to tell someone. I dunno.” 

Surprisingly, she gets all misty eyed and _hugs_ him at that, leaning across the divide between their stools and throwing her arms around his shoulders. 

“Oh Mister McQueen, I’m fucking _sorry_ I was so–that I didn’t know. That I just assumed you were living some weird lonely bachelor life. But you were freaking married this whole time.” 

“Not technically but in every other way, yeah,” he mumbles against her hair, awkwardly patting her back. “I can’t believe you thought I had a crush on _Storm_ before you considered Doc and I were together. I _live_ with him. I talk to him every night on the phone when we’re out town. I mention him constantly, m’like…so in love with him. I feel like it’s always showing.” 

She pulls back, eyes wide. “I literally just thought it was a professional thing, that you were consulting your crew chief for advice with me and just really close with him and valued his opinions? A lot? The living together thing should have tipped me off though, jeez. I mean I knew Doc was gay and wondered if he was like, tragically in love with you but…” she shrugs, looking wistfully to the bar. “You’re so ugly and he’s such a handsome old silver fox I was like, unlikely.” Then she cracks up, slamming her fist down on the bar, wheezing as Lightning sits back, trying to keep up.

“Ha, ha, very funny,” he says, knowing full well Doc is out of his league, even if she’s joking about it. 

“I can’t believe this, I was so stupid! Guess this makes, like, our whole crew gay? Just like my high school friend group.” 

The first physical sensations of relief wash over Lightning in this moment, making his cheeks hot, his fingers tingly as he drums them against his empty glass. It feels really nice, to imagine himself being _a part_ of something parallel to Cruz’s friend group, to imagine everyone just—knowing, instead of hating himself for keeping it a secret for so long. “Wow,” he says. “I’m sure glad I told you. I didn’t even really know how much it was eating me up not to.” 

“I should have figured it out!” she says. “I mean, I’m thinking of all the times I overheard you say ‘love you’ or ‘miss you’ when you hung up on Doc. I was all ‘ _wow_ Mister McQueen is really working on his whole toxic masculinity thing, look at him practicing vulnerable intimacy.’ Meanwhile, you’ve been with the guy for ten years,” she shakes her head, then gestures for the bartender. “Hey! Can we get another two? and then close out the tab.” Then she turns to him, grinning. “We _gotta_ toast to being the first ever trio of queer NASCARracers. What a tradition. No _wonder_ we’re so good.” 

Lightning nods, and lets out a breath he feels like he’s been holding for _years._


	36. pit kiss

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lightning kisses doc in the pits. cw for being in the closet/secret relationship stuff. Mostly fluff.

Amid the chaos of the pit, Lightning just—loses his mind a little. He doesn’t _mean_ to ruffle Doc up, it’s more that he fucking forgets, sometimes, where he’s allowed to kiss Doc and where he’s _not,_ especially since they’ve told nearly everyone in Radiator Springs and that’s lowered his guard a lot. So fifteen minutes before the race starts and Lightning needs to get into the rollcage, he corners Doc, grabs him by the headset hanging around his neck. “Hey,” he says, grinning. “Good luck kiss?” 

And Doc’s eyes get wide before he actually _flushes,_ which he hardly ever does, even during sex. Then, he presses a broad palm to Lightning’s chest and gently pushes him off. “What?! No,” he says gruffly, the blue of his irises flashing under the glare of the sun. “Who do you think I am, kid?” 

_My fucking boyfriend_ Lightning very nearly reminds him. Until he realizes what he’s doing, and bites it back reflexively, shaking his head. “Oh,” he bites out, letting go of the headset so suddenly, like it burnt him. 

“Get your head in the game,” Doc says sternly, gaze sweeping the pit. Luckily, anyone who’s not a crew member is busy and doesn’t pause to notice them, but _still._ It’s a close call, and shit like that makes Doc jumpy, every time. Usually Lightning cares so much what other people think about him, but this particular thing, for some reason, feels like a truth that should be _shared,_ broadcasted. Because it makes him happy. Because he feels _proud._ So he won’t even _realize_ that he’s not faking the role of Doc’s hotshot racing mentee convincingly enough. That he’s acting more like his boy, and less like his project. 

He spends the next few minutes zipping up into his jumpsuit, feeling guilty while Doc keeps his distance, shaking his head every few seconds like he can’t believe what an idiot Lightning is. 

Doc is _still_ shaking his head when he comes back, grabs Lightning’s elbow in a firm grip an says, “Hey, kid. C’mere. Got something to stay to you in private.” 

Lightning thinks he’s gonna get chewed out for not focusing on the race enough as Doc steers him away into a supply closet, but instead, once the door is locked behind them, Doc cups his face between his palms and drags him close to press their lips together. “Good luck,” he says gently as he pulls away, thumbing over his favorite freckle on Lightning’s cheekbone. “Sorry I got snappy back there. I Just. It’s hard enough keeping my head around you, pretending m’not used to touching you all the time, and. I dunno. You make me crazy.” 

Lightning grins, throwing his arms around Doc’s neck, hiding his face in the bunched up fabric of his Hudson Hornet windbreaker as he melts into the cage of his arms. “I feel you,” he murmurs. “Thanks for the luck.” 


	37. hurts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Doc hides things. CW for miscommunication and discussions of chronic pain. happy/hopeful ending though.

Doc’s been waking up with a stiff back for years now, but in the last month or so, the chronic stiffness has solidified into a distinct _pain._ It goes away eventually, with enough stretching and grimacing and covertly applied Tiger Balm, but it’s a lot to hide. And for some reason, Doc feels like he _needs_ to hide it. Not because he’s ashamed, but because Lightning worries _enough_ about his age, his health. He doesn’t need something concrete to pin it on and obsess over. 

Still, it’s hard to keep it from him when Doc can barely _walk_ in the morning, when he winces his way through toast in coffee while Lightning shaves in the bathroom, trying to get it under control before he comes out and notices something’s off. 

He lasts about a week before Lightning calls him out on it. “I ordered you one of those lumbar support pillows from amazon,” he says idly as they turn in for bed. Doc’s gaze snaps to him and he looks tired, bags under his eyes as he combs his fingers through his hair. He’s greying at his temples these days, and it makes his hair look even lighter, the flaxen run through with silver so he’s made of precious metals. Lightning’s getting older, too, and as far as Doc’s concerned, more handsome every fucking day. “Should be here in a few days. You can use it in the car, on the couch, wherever.” 

“Why did you—“ Doc starts, even though is heart is clenching. He forgets how observant Lightning can be, how closely he watches every little thing, like the world is a race track to size up and conquer. “You noticed.” 

“Of course I noticed. M’fucking married to you. We sleep in the same bed every night. I like to look at you. Think I _wouldn’t_ notice?” he grumbles, flopping down onto the bed, frowning. And this, _this_ is why Doc didn’t want him to know, didn’t want to _worry_ him. Because Lightning hates when he can’t help, he beats himself up for it, gets sullen and quiet and wide-eyed with fear. For the first few years they were together, before Doc started sincerely slowing down, Lightning acted like there wasn’t an age difference at all, speeding headlong into the sunset like he does every other time. But now, Doc can _tell_ how much it scares him. How much he wants to pump the breaks, despite his every instinct to just keep driving to some inevitable end. 

“I didn’t want you to worry about it, babe. There’s nothing you can do, and I know you hate that,” Doc mumbles, walking to the edge of the bed and looking down at him, the way he’s grinding his teeth, hands shoved into the pockets of his sweats, gaze decidedly averted. 

“But that’s bullshit, Doc, there _are_ things I can do. I can order you lumbar pillows. And rub the tiger balm on so you don’t fuck your back up worse doing it yourself. And I can—I dunno. I can talk to you. And be here for you, when you’re hurting.” 

Doc’s throat tightens, and he realizes fast and hard, that in shutting Lightning out he’s not being self sufficient, he’s being selfish. He’s being unfair. “Fuck,” he mumbles, shaking his head. “You’re right.” 

Lightning raises his eyebrows. “Damn. Thought you were gonna put up more of a fight with that one.” 

“No,” Doc says quietly. “Move over.” Lightning does, making room for Doc on the bed and studying him with a soft, longing gaze as he clambers down carefully next to him. Doc curls an arm around his waist, pulls him close and kisses his forehead. “M’sorry.” 

“I just love you, ok? So let me.” Lightning sighs, gingerly feeling out Doc’s lower back with light, searching pressure. “Where does it hurt?” 

“Everywhere. Feels better when you touch it, though.” 

“See?” Lightning murmurs, closing his eyes and settling closer. “You take care of me so good. Gotta let me take care of you back.” 

“The pillow will be good,” Doc admits, wondering why it’s so goddamned hard to let Lightning _help._ He loves him so fucking much, more than he’s loved anyone or anything in his whole life. But just because you love someone doesn’t mean you know how to let them in. He’s got to get better at that, even though he’s not got much time left to get better at anything. “And. If you could remind me to do my stretches in the morning.” 

Lightning smiles, and it’s like dawn cracking over the horizon, gold and bright. It makes Doc’s breath stop. “You got it, old man,” he murmurs. And then he’s hauling himself up, bending down, and kissing the small of Doc’s back where his spine stands out like the topography of a relief map. And that feels better, too. 


	38. night walk

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just fluff! They take a walk in the desert.

Doc likes to take his walks at night, stroll out into the desert away from town after the sun’s set to stand up by the dirt track around the butte and watch the stars. Lightning makes a point to come with him, even if it’s _freezing,_ even if his joints ache after the fact, which is embarrassing because he’s half Doc’s age and should be the more rugged and adaptable one between them. 

Still, it’s pretty amazing out there amid the scrub brush, their fingers laced together, shoved into the pocket of Doc’s Carhartt jacket to keep from going numb in the chill. Lightning gets dizzy at how big the sky looks, the endless, dotted darkness of it somehow freeing and oppressive at the same time. He likes feeling small, and insignificant, and having his worries melt away under so much fucking sky. He likes holding hands, he likes that he’s just the right height for Doc to effortlessly lay an arm around his shoulders. 

“You’re shaking,” Doc observes one night, thumbing over Lightning’s knuckles. “Want to head back?” 

“Nah,” Lightning hisses through clenched teeth, staring up at the night. “M’trying to find Orion’s belt. It’s almost _harder_ with more stars.” 

Doc smiles, and points. “Right there. One, two, three.” 

Lightning squints, trying to follow the crooked line of Doc’s finger out into the darkness, but everything just blends together. “I’m shivering so hard my vision is blurring.” 

Doc laughs, untangles their fingers so he can curl his arms around Lightning from behind, pull him close, get him warm. “We’ll go back, baby.” 

Then, something wet touches Lightning’s ear. He slaps it away, shifting in Doc’s grip, just as another one touches his bare hand. “Oh— _oh my god,_ is it _snowing?”_ he gasps, tilting his head back onto Doc’s shoulder to stare up into the inky black. 

Sure enough, little white flakes are pinwheeling down, clinging to his hair, to Doc’s jacket. “Sure is,” Doc says, brushing some out of Lightning’s over-grown bangs. “Damn, told you we should have worn hats.” 

“No wonder I was so cold, _jesus,”_ he grumbles, spinning around, hooking his arms around Doc’s neck. His eyes look even icier blue in the darkness, and the glint of them makes Lightning’s stomach drop, his throat feel tight. He never got to _do_ romantic stuff before, when he was too busy being an asshole and a playboy to settle with a girl long enough to enjoy the holidays. But now he gets to see the may he loves with snow in his mustache, and the whole thing feels so fucking unbelievable his heart could burst. “Hey, kiss me? I’ve never kissed in the snow before.” 

Doc quirks an eyebrow up, but his hands are spreading wide and warm and sweet on Lightning’s back, rubbing up his spine. “You’ve watched to many hallmark movies, kid.” 

“Hey! If you don’t _want_ to kiss me, then—” Doc cuts him off, pulling him in with a fist on the collar of his flannel, lips cold until they’re not anymore, fingers sifting up through the back of Lightning’s snowy hair. “Thank you,” Lightning complacently murmurs as Doc pulls away, breathless, crushing Lightning to his chest and squeezing him too tight. “Ow.” 

“Sorry,” Doc mumbles, kissing his temple, inhaling the smell of cold from his hair. “I just. Fuck. Can’t believe I get to kiss you whenever I want to.” 

Lightning softens into his embrace, sighing low and long. It’s comforting, he guesses, that Doc isn’t used to how good this is yet, either. They they’re still getting used to _staying,_ and thinking of themselves as someone worth staying _with._ “Whenever. Even when m’dying of frostbite.” 

Doc laughs, breath a bloom of white in the cold. “Ok. Let’s get you home.


	39. show off

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Doc takes Lightning to Thomasville for the holidays. CW for insecurity.

t’s been _convenient,_ really, that neither of them have living family that’s not estranged. Their Christmases have been low-stakes, casual. Dinner and drinking parties with the folks around Radiator Springs, meeting at Flo’s on the 24th to exchange gifts around the giant silver tinsel tree up by the register. Lightning feels like _this_ is his real family, anyway. His friends, and Doc, a strong weathered hand in his back pocket, kissing him under the mistletoe but only as long as no one’s looking. 

So, it sort of hits him like a sucker punch when Doc tells him they’re going to Thomasville for New Years. 

“What? Why? I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m _down_ to see your hometown, race that old dirt track…just. Won’t Luigi and Guido miss us at their ball-dropping party?” Lightning says, voice coming out incredulous. Hedidn’t even _know_ Doc had friends back home, so the notion of meeting them is overwhelming, _scary,_ even. He’s imagining a dark bar full of racing legends, all of them judging him for his less than stellar latest season, giving Doc a hard time for his significantly younger boyfriend. It’s a lot, for a guy who only came out to his closest friends (and himself) three years ago. It’s intimidating. 

“Ok,” Doc says, shrugging. “Doesn’t have to be New Years. Anytime in January works as long as it’s before your season starts.” 

“Um. Yeah, ok,” Lightning mumbles, so suddenly crawling out of his skin. He’s not good at faking things so Doc sees through him right away. 

“What’s your problem?” He asks, walking his coffee mug to the sink, where he drops it off before coming up behind Lightning to squeeze his shoulders reassuringly. “You’re all bent out of shape.” 

“M’not, it’s just—I dunno. I thought we both didn’t have any family so this, right here, was our family. I’m not like… _prepared_ to be introduced to your _people._ I will be, I just need some time to think about it, I guess. I’m like. I’m worried they’ll hate me, that they’ll think m’not good enough for you,” he admits, knowing it sounds stupid even as it comes out, each word dripping in insecurity. He frowns, but Doc reaches up and rubs it off with his thumb. 

“Hey, quit that. They won’t _hate_ you. And you’re _too_ good for me, what’re you even talking about? ” 

“Not true, plus…I dunno. It’s not like I have the best track record, people in the racing world _know_ I was an asshole, why won’t they think m’just some rookie and write me off? _”_ Lightning asks, a internally preparing a whole laundry list of flaws in case he needs to spell them out. 

“Because,” Doc says easily, shrugging. “I love you. So they will too. It’s as easy as that.” 

Lightning sighs, getting up out of his seat at the dinette table to loop his arms around Doc’s waist and rub his face into the soft fleece of his robe. “Do they even _know_ about me?” 

Doc laughs. “Of course they do. They’re all NASCARbuffs.” 

“ _No,_ I mean—”

“Yeah, yeah. They know about me and you. Haven’t _told them_ as much, but they know. Which is why they’ll love you, ok? They’re good people, baby. They care about the right stuff. Like what makes me happy.” His fingers are in Lightning’s hair, then, scratching at his scalp just how he likes. It’s a surefire way to get him to agree to anything, so Lightning takes note, that this is something important to Doc. 

“Ok,” he agrees with a deep breath. “After the ball drop party I’ll go meet your secret Thomasville friends you never told me about.” 

“Good,” he says, kissing Lightning’s forehead, sweet and lingering, mustache scraping against his hairline. “Can’t wait to show you off.” 


End file.
